Several months after photographer Laurence Philomène began testosterone hormone therapy as part of their transition, they began to take pictures of themselves at home. This was in 2018, and Philomène, was concerned about burnout, so they took two months off from work to focus on self-care
Establishing a portrait practice became part of their daily routine: They photographed themselves making breakfast or brushing their teeth; they took nude self-portraits against their home’s baby blue walls or while wearing a fairytale princess gown in bed. All these images are made more vibrant by the presence of Philomène’s signature neon orange hair.
What began as a simple impulse to chronicle a period of physical and mental change has become an archive of thousands of images and now a forthcoming book, “Puberty,” set to be released this summer.
“Puberty” captures all the intimate details of daily life in lush color, and the photographer often interrupts the mundane with the unexpected. Philomène sits in the lilac-tinted water of a bathtub, eyes downcast, sipping from a mug. They recline on a couch like Ingres’ famous 19th-century painting of a concubine, “Grande Odalisque,” gazing over their shoulder at the camera. In one image, their hand holds a peach in the dappled morning light; in another frame, echoing that composition, they hold a medical syringe with hormones above an overturned plush Care Bear.
On one level these photos are about the photographer’s personal experience of transitioning. At the same time, Philomène’s images capture what has become a globalized human experience, as the difficulties of self-care at home and the pressures of productivity have grown more relevant during the coronavirus pandemic.
“(Puberty) is about my transition, but it’s also just these themes that resonate really deeply with being a human in the 21st century,” said Philomène in a video interview from their home in Montreal.