Customer Reviews

Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was one of the greatest gifts I have ever gotten myself. When I finished reading and looking at the beautiful photographs, I hugged the book to my chest.
This book not only told me thru writings but also showed me that I wasn't alone. This book meant the world to me as a bigendered female. I had only read about others transgender people, but had never seen anyone besides myself.
Thank you Mr.Cameron. :)
I recomend this book to anyone dealing with transgender issues- whether they be trans themself, a realtive or friend of a trans person, or just plain curious.

Young isolated FTM guys... BUY THIS BOOK. The before and after portraits of the guys will comfort and inspire you like nothing else will. Transitioning can be done... There are others like you... and they look great!

I purchased this book as a gift for a f2M friend of mine who drew a LOT of hope from it. Loren's camera and words have a strong impact. Understanding one's self, our true nature, is vital. Body Alchemy is a valuable lesson in that.

I'm a minority. I am very much outside this book's intended audience, to say the least. I am a straight bio-male. And I can say without any homosexual tension, that Mr. Cameron you are built like a god.

The photos border on Arbus-esque but offer a more compassionate less spectacle treatment of the subjects. I guess that's a point well demontsrated when the phographer spends as much time in front of the camera as well as behind. You are more inclined to look at these unusual subjects with reverence not repulsion. The book overall is beautifully put toether. Sparse and poignantly so.

Now the "green with envy" part. Even if Cameron is 5'3", for me to stand next to him would be totally emasculating. There aren't a lot of "real" men out there who are willing to go out to the gym to look that ripped. I feel so flabby.

A seminal book - a powerful photographic record of ftm transsexuals in society. This is the book that first made me acknowledge my own transsexualism - the mirror I had been looking for all my life. Cameron's photography, both of himself and others, is stark black and white imagery of the anger, pain and emergent joy associated with transition. A wide variety of men of different ages, backgrounds, jobs, families, apperance, likes and dislikes, all sharing one common thread. Text in the book is minimal but well written and apposite, autobiographically topped and tailed by Cameron. Includes some pictures of genital modification - very well received amongst the transmen I know as no-one else has ever compiled a readily available book showing what the results of these surgeries can look like. Fascinating, triumphant, joyful - this is the book that shows the liberating experience of finally becoming oneself after years trapped in the wrong body. Well done, Mr Cameron ! ! and thank you.

"Body Alchemy" fills a much-needed niche in the word of transgender literature: a photography book dedicated to the female-to-male individual. It is also a very touching (no pun intended) portrait of it's author, Loren Cameron. Check out the book, of this wonderful FTM photographer.

Cameron has done something special for all FTMs. He has given us the hope and the realization that we can do it. We can look at those that went before us and know that we can become the person we are meant to be. This book is an inspiration, and it's so beautiful. I've looked at it so many times, and I never fail to feel the hope it brings to me.

What can I say that hasn't already been said before?
The photography is beautiful, the subject is very well presented and the amount of courage to open up like this is unbelievable.
I would recomend this book to anyone interested in photography and/or transgender issues.

This is a great, detailed look into the world of female to male transexuals, and the only book of its kind I have found.

This book comes in a couple sections. First Loren writes about his personal history and shows photographs he has taken of himself. Some of the most interesting ones are the ones surrounded by things people have said about him, such as "Men are jerks, why would you want to become one?" and "I can't be with you: I'm not a lesbian." There are two sections with photographs of other transmen and their stories, and a section called "emergence" which shows transmen and their "before" pictures. There are also surgery and modification pictures, including two metoidioplasties, a phalloplasty, a set of piercings, and two mastectomies. The last section is Loren and his partner, Kayt, talking about their relationship with photos of them together.

The pictures are very nice, and I feel the writings and the photos are an accurate representation of trans life, especially considering diversity. Doctors, bodybuilders, surfers, an interesting story from a Jewish transman about the Bar Mitzvah, and of various sexual orientations rather than just transmen who love women.