On the morning of March 22, Atlas Photography posted a request on its Facebook page looking for “transgender Indiana residents” to participate in a photography project in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility.

Sam McCollum, a Muncie native, is the trans man behind the site and project. Although McCollum works as a crisis response coordinator at Mental Health America of Indiana, he has been taking photographs since college.
He said his original goal for the project was to reach a handful of people in Muncie and offer them free support – a gesture he said is rarely seen.

“I found that there aren’t many opportunities to show visibility,” McCollum said. “In Indiana, it’s hard to show that part of yourself… Transgender people aren’t often represented.”

McCollum said he was overwhelmed by the response to his project. His initial hope of reaching a handful of people in the community was easily fulfilled, as he received responses from people across east central Indiana.

While recovering from breast surgery, McCollum was in a surgical folder – and just a month after the first post – still busy scheduling photo shoots to accommodate the incoming requests to participate.

“When I took photos (of the participants) and was able to show them, many of them said, ‘Wow, I don’t usually like photos of myself, I don’t usually take many photos,’ or ‘I like how I look in this photo,'” he said.

The level of excitement and comfort he felt between himself and his subjects is not something trans people often experience. He said that throughout history there have been very few photos and videos of trans people – another reason why this project was so important to him.

“A lot of our history has been erased… There’s not a lot of photographic evidence,” McCollum said. “This is proof that we exist and we’re here; we’ve always been here and we’re here to stay.”

According to Stonewall, images and videos of transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community in general have been largely erased from history. LGBTQ+ photographers and videographers in the Midwest, like McCollum, are working to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.

Muncie native and videographer Ray Replogle grew up in an anti-LGBTQ+ environment but found a home in Muncie/Ball State University’s large LGBTQ+ community. Replogle began his business primarily creating promotional videos for the Muncie Civic Theater and other nonprofits and small businesses.

After some time, Replogle was asked to photograph the wedding of a famous person – a first for them. They continued booking weddings and eventually Replogle was asked to photograph their first LGBTQ+ wedding, which they described as “groundbreaking.”

“It was so radically different from these ‘honky-tonk’ barn weddings I was doing,” Replogle said. “I started putting my queer identity more at the forefront of my business and started talking more loudly about being gay. That got me more queer clients, and the whole thing just kind of took off.”

This “snowball effect” took her across the country and led her to film all but one LGBTQ+ wedding last year.

Replogle has learned that there is a huge need for videography in the wedding industry, and when it comes to LGBTQ+ vendors or those where sexual identity is at the heart of their wedding experience, they are almost the only choice.

“Videography has always been evil and a weapon of white supremacy and heteronormative patriarchy. As a trans person, I think simply making videos is an incredible form of active resistance,” they said.

Indiana wedding and portrait photographer Jasmine Tafoya joined Replogle and also recognized the importance of her identity within her business.

“It’s really gratifying to see that there are a lot of us out here who are willing to work with you,” she said. “You deserve to have options, you deserve to have people who are vocal in your support – people who are also vocal about themselves.”

Tafoya started her business 10 years ago and focuses her work on providing a comfortable environment for her clients. She says this starts at the beginning of her interactions with clients by providing comprehensive intake forms.

This practice simultaneously helps break down the gendered and stereotypical branding of “bride and groom” within the wedding industry. She said that despite the advancements in the industry, there is still active resistance.

“The hardest part is when it comes to weddings and there are people around them who may not have the same values,” she said. “Sometimes the people who know and love them are visibly uncomfortable with the fact that my second photographer is my wife.”

Ultimately, she knows that her work as a photographer is important and allows her to continue telling stories to her clients.

“The people who hire me hire me because of who I am, whether it’s because I’m queer or because I’m a woman or because of my worldview,” she said. “It’s really empowering to be able to work with so many people from the queer community.”

Sage Look, a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and currently a photographer in the Chicago area, said they have a similar attitude toward their own work.

After a photoshoot for SCAD students in 2023 spread harmful anti-trans rhetoric, Look, a trans person, was one of the first people to openly speak out against the shoot. The photoshoot, posted to Instagram, showed a person reversing their gender reassignment, with the caption that medical gender reassignment surgery is “harmful” to “thousands of youth.”

While Look’s protest against the photoshoot was praised by like-minded people and members of the LGBTQ+ community, it received just as much hate online.

“It’s really sad that I’ve become accustomed to being misgendered online, especially because people like to weaponize my own identity against me in many ways,” they said.

After enduring days of hate, SCAD reached out to Look directly and asked them to place a spotlight on the school’s official Instagram page.

“I feel like I’ve been targeted. I’ve always felt that way, but I feel like it’s increased in the last few years, in the form of violence against trans people – it’s being used as a weapon,” Look said. “It was a beautiful feeling to realize that I had a community that supported me, that loved my art – my transgender art and my queer art – for what it is. That was a really special feeling.”

Despite the difficulties they face in creating LGBTQ+ art, they said their job is everything they ever wanted, even if it sounds cheesy.

“I have such a deep love for people, especially the queer community, that it’s just really important to me to showcase queerness in a way that’s really colorful, bold (and) larger than life,” Look said. “I want to get people to recognize queerness for what it is, and that queerness can be beautiful, that queerness is queer — but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.”

Contact Trinity Rea by email at [email protected] or on X @thetrinityrea.