Spraygraphic Interview with Paola de Grenet
By Spraygraphic | April 2, 2008
http://www.sprayblog.net/spraygraphic-artist-interviews/spraygraphic-interview-with-paola-de-grenet/SG: Can you please tell us a little about your Life as a Transsexual series. Where were they taken? How did you gain access and trust from your subjects? How long did you shoot them for?
PdG: I started "Life as a Transsexual" in 2003, only a few months after arriving in Barcelona, which is where most of the shots were taken. It took me two years to finish the project. In this time I spent lots of Friday nights by the fire with the girls; once they thought I was a prostitute myself and wondered why I wasn't looking for clients that night. I slowly started asking some of them if I could go and visit them at their places. Mostly they like being photographed, in fact the real challenge was to get some natural shots.... you don't know how many breast shots I had to edit out!!!! But I also learned to read a lot into their poses, in fact through them I learned the importance of a pose. We can learn as much about a subject observing what s/he wants to appear as and not only what I think s/he is.
