Two days earlier, the American photographer had met young community leaders in the hope that some could participate in a new project exploring the lives of marginalized young people in the remote region of Brazil. The news had spread quickly.
“He came to me and said to me: ‘You are the photographer, I am a Drag Queen and you photograph me on Thursday’,” recalls Lyons during a telephone interview.
The couple met and the portrait that resulted from it – Wendell fixing with challenge the camera with a match lit in the mouth – has become the most striking image of the new dreamy series on the passage at age Adult of Lyon, “like a river”. “But as a photographer and anthropologist by training, Lyons seems more interested in human stories behind his images.
“Wendell drags the performances, but he also takes care of his mother’s small company selling Churrasco (grilled meat) at night on the market,” he said. “She is quite sick and he has taken over. So, it is a very sensitive thing: he does not want to make a dredge and (having any discrimination that results from it) negatively affect the company is what they Survive.
“So, to overcompensate, he became this” mother “for all non -binary children, trans and queer in the city,” added Lyons, telling how Wendell opened his house to teenagers in difficulty and helped the young transgenders in Access hormones. therapy in the nearest town, Manaus.
About half of the subjects of the new book of Lyons identify as trans, non -binary or “queer in a certain way,” said the photographer. Credit: like a river 2022/loose joints
However, the dominant spirit of the images of Lyon is that of resilience.
“There was a struggle between everyone I worked with, for sure,” he said. “But it is almost as if discrimination was just tacitly understood. It is the underlying current, it is there, but as I became friends with people, there were a lot of positive discussions.
“There was a (feeling of) perseverance – celebrating the fact that they can walk in this city and not worry about what people think.”
Intersectional identities
Borrowing its title from a Brazilian poem of the same name, “Like a River” depicts not only the LGBTQ communities of the region, but other groups “living on the fringes”, as Lyons says. His intimate images capture adolescents involved in artistic and musical subcultures, as well as young people with complex “intersectional identities”.
The photographer also turned his goal towards young militants for the land, environmental threats being a recurring concern among his subjects. He said that fear of illegal mining and deforestation has increased significantly in Careiro since he launched the project in 2019.
Lyons also turned his goal towards the region’s environment, which, according to him, is increasingly threatened. Credit: like a river 2022/loose joints
“There is obviously a lot of discrimination based on being queer, but I think that the biggest threat to people is that Bolsonaro has created this wild West in the Amazon. There is a lot of fear that logs and illegal minors can enter a community, “he added, referring to the recent relationships of minors attacking native villages in search of gold and other resources.
Lyons, who has already produced series on marginalized young people in Mozambique and Ukraine, deals with the portrait as an act of collaboration – and his subjects as friends.
The photographer focuses on building relationships before he picks up his camera. He generally does not capture people the day he meets them – and he gives his collaborators the power to know where and how the filming takes place, including what they wear and how they pose.
“This is not traditional photojournalism where you rush, take photos and start again,” said Lyons, who said he was still in contact with many people presented in “Like A River”.
“It was much more than that. I wanted to focus on interaction with people and really cherish these intimate moments they shared with me.”