As a Fulbright grantee in San Francisco, I wanted to carry forward the idea of family portraits in such a diverse and liberal city and express the freedom and beauty that I experienced in California. Since working on my book Princesses and Football Stars, I have become very interested in the subject of family portraits. I decided to take images of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] families and couples, as an investigation on the shift in understanding family life.
The ease of how people with varied sexual orientation, cultures, and religions live together in San Francisco is amazingly enlightening. Thus, this project is both a declaration of love to this wonderful city and also an encounter with people, their concepts of life, and their dreams.
The portraits are photographed in color to underline the implicit commonness that is characteristic for the lives of LGBT families and couples in San Francisco. The images were taken at places that add to the personal narratives. These tell where they live, where they like to spend their spare time, or where they met for their first date. Furthermore, it was important for me to provide enough space to the protagonists of my photographs to allow them the comfort to express their individual personalities in front of me and my camera.
The title of this project, International Orange, the color of the Golden Gate Bridge, is at the same time a reference to San Francisco, the rainbow flag of the gay movement, and an international signifier of freedom.