Queer Lens" is a photography book exploring the history of the LGBTQ+ community, It has insightful commentary on queer culture and its powerful visual representation of queer experiences. This book is a significant addition to the scholarship on queer imagery, celebrating both the artistic and political impact of photography within LGBTQ+ communities. A fantastic book 👍👍

What a gorgeous book! This is quite academic in nature, from my perspective, but not so much so that an interested audience from the general public couldn't follow. All of the essays support the collections of photographs so well, and each of the authors has such a wonderful tone. I'd highly recommend this book to those interested in queer history and the history of photography.

With love and thanks to Getty Publications for the ARC!

A perfect book for all fans of photography but also queer people interested in its history.

I love looking at old photographs, it's always a very moving experience. This book is full of beautiful photography starting in the 19th century all the way to modernity. The book focusses, as the title suggests, on queer people and the way they use photography to express themselves.

This book also contains a quick history of photography with a timeline of its development mixed with important dates from queer history. There are also a few essays on these subjects, from the first queer magazines through the liberation movement to the objectification and erasure of poc in queer communities. All of them are a great read.

My only complaint is the lack of relevant photographs next to essays. The authors mention the creators or even specific photographs, but we only have a number that we can use to find them in the book. Which quickly gets annoying (especially if you're reading the ebook). I tried to remember relevant information, but there's a lot of it.
But it also made me want to read it a second time.

This book was really well done. I think having it as an ebook maybe didn't come across very well, as page set up is quite important for a book on photography, but I think the overall premise, writing, and flow of the book was wonderful. Queerness is so beautiful and this book, the authors/editors, and the subjects portray the many layers of being queer through this medium.

This was such a beautiful book as it celebrated Queer identity through photography, full of inspiring stories.

Well, I'll tell ya. This is not the book you may want to be reading while stuck in an airplane circling Orlando for 40 minutes. Luckily, I was on a redeye flight and didn't have anyone in the middle seat next to me to look over and notice some extremely NSFW photos on my phone.

On my return flight, there was a joking threat that I may be stuck sitting next to bosses, and I said I had the perfect book to read during the flight.

This is a really nifty little book, and it is definitely a HISTORY. Over a hundred years' worth of photography, not all of which you wouldn't want to be looking at while sitting next to a sitting judge from a small rural southern town. Some of it is just your classic black and white or sepia toned photograph and a little life blurb somewhere else in the book explaining who they were.

The problem is with those words up there. Somewhere else.

I realize I'm reading an ebook and that can lend itself to photo not being nicely next to each other, but this can't be blamed on ebook. Your story is on page 3 and the photograph is possibly on page 5, but make sure you keep a finger somewhere to get back to that original story, otherwise you're looking at a naked person and just trying to assume what's happening. Or you're reading someone's story and when you see a photo later, hoping it's them.

It does not lend itself to learning the history, so you have to decide if you're here more for a photography book, or for a history book. You'll have to read a few times if you want to have both.

rich, raw, and so important

Queer Lens: A History of Photography is a gorgeously curated book accompaniment to the free entry Getty Center exhibit that will be open from June 17 until September 28! Not 30 seconds passed after finishing this book before I was browsing the Getty exhibit calendar.

The images included in this publication truly capture queer history in a subversive way, outlining the impact that queer photography, being photographs of queer people and/or photographs taken by queer people, have had on queer culture, intersectionality, representation, and visibility.

Each section was beautifully executed, and the afterword "To Be Seen" was a wonderful way to conclude the work. I am itching to visit the exhibit as soon as it is open, and I urge anyone else who has the ability to do so to visit.

I will absolutely be referencing this in papers moving forward!

This book is a powerful compilation of queer photography since the invention of the photo. From subject, to artist, to both, we have intimate moments between couples and highly staged art, and everything in between.

I definitely recommend reading this physically, I was lucky enough to get an eARC from Netgalley, but the format made it very hard to fully enjoy. A coffee table book for sure! Just make sure your coffee table is no where near any children, as nudity and pornographic photos abound!

All in all, I enjoyed the read, and I learned a lot about both photography, and queer history. Because of the nature of the subject, the book had a very Western lens, but I think that can be excused by the availability of photography throughout history. In this time of uncertainty and fear, where queerness is threatened by governments world wide, it is ever so important to have physical media representation of our history, and I think this is a good place to start.

Preserving pieces of queer history is more important than ever today, and that makes this collection of photos so valuable. I'd very happily have this book on my coffee table.

This collection of journalistic and artistic photos documents both the political and the private moments of our history. Whenever I see black-and-white photos of queer people who lived long before me, there's that feeling in my chest, that "we've always been here" thought that I'm sure we all recognize. It fills me with so much queer joy. We're still here.

Whether I'd open this book to a photo captured at a protest, or to an artistic shot that should hang in a gallery, it's a picture that I could look at for ages.

Thank you to Getty Publications and NetGalley for the eARC.

Wonderful! What a way to start off pride month. Will get a physical copy and show it to anyone stepping in my house.

okay, so this was cool.

we're given a chronological look at queer photography from its inception to modern days. it's interesting because, as a queer person, i think a lot about all the stories and histories that have been lost or intentionally erased. it was nice to see evidence from the 1800's, even, of the documentation of queer people.

it was also interesting to see how photography evolved, how it was made, how it was policed, and how it impacted society. like, okay - the genderfuckery that i was seeing in photos from the early 1900's? i was living for it. or the idea that photos of men naked and touching were taken to "show the human form". there was a bit i liked, about how we used to have to hunt for the queerness or read it into photos.

also, loved the documentation of the act up era/aids crisis, which was the first time a spotlight was truly trained on queer communities and really set the tone for how media is made now.

my only gripe with this one falls on the layout of the book. a LOT of the text referred to specific photos that... you really had to search for in another part of the book. i think, if this book appeals to you, my recommendation would be to buy the physical copy so you can flip through and contextualize what you're reading.

Overall, if you are interested in photography, queer history, or both, this book is for you. I found it informative and interesting, though the text was a bit dense. I think it could have benefited from having the images it was talking about next to the text, instead of lumped together with just a note of what plate it is. The book references images that appear dozens of pages later, which is especially tricky in ebook form. The format made the book, while interesting, difficult to read.

One a small note, I would have also appreciated an inclusion of the fact one of their historical pictures in the book, "V-J Day in Times Square" is of a sexual assault, if they felt the need to include the image at all, especially given it was used to discuss another work (which was not in the book until 200 pages later) that turns it queer.

"The extremely provisional nature of queer culture is the thing that makes its transmission so fragile." - from Nayland Blake's 1995 essay, quoted here in Queer Lens.
Thorough, comprehensive, definitive reporting and reflecting on Queer photography's history, encompassing both queer subjects and queer photographers. Entire phrases that made me pause and think incredibly deeply about my own queerness and our collective community memory, both in quotes pulled from other authors like the above and from the writers of this text themselves. This is one to return to over and over again.

Thank you to Getty and NetGalley for the eGalley to review!

After reading this book and looking at the photographs inside it, I firmly believe that this is one of those books that should be in academic libraries that serve the arts, humanities, history, etc. because it is incredible. It's meant to be a companion to an exhibition put up by the J. Paul Getty Museum and if you are unable to attend said exhibition, don't worry--this book has you totally covered. Each of the plates are showcased as they would be in a museum, with acknowledgements and relevant information. But this book goes even further by giving us the history of photography through a queer lens and the effect of it and various photography techniques in shaping queer culture. I am sincerely amazed by the depth and range of the content explored, going all the way back to when photography was first invented and how the French used it immediately for queer art.

If you study queer representation, culture, history, etc., this is absolutely one you want to add to a collection, because it is utterly raw in its portraits. There is a chronology included that goes back to the 1730's--when the word lesbian was first printed--and covers everything historical about queerness as it has evolved to become what we know now. There is special attention to Blackness and the queer self-portrait, along with queer imagination--giving context to the photos that look nonsensical. I think the most important thing is the selected bibliography in the back and the notes at the end of each section, showing just how deep the research and information in this book goes, far beyond its own cover. It's amazing!

My only issue with it is how small the text is, but it's fairly standard format when it comes to art books such as this. Also be warned that there is full nudity in some photographs, but every photograph has been meticulously chosen for artistic merit (this is explained in the text itself). There is complicated history here and this book is one way to help sift through that.

This was a good read. I learned a lot and enjoyed the selected photographs. I want a copy for my art book shelf

A beautiful and moving portfolio of queer photography spanning the history of the art. Thoughtfully collected and presented alongside contextual information, Queer Lens is a gorgeous book of queer imagery. While I loved this collection and appreciated every image, I did wish to see more images of women- especially explicit photos. There were many pictures of men with men in very intimate and revealing settings but very few that had women engaging with women and none of them were sexually explicit. Whether this is an oversight of the editors or due to a lack of availability of images, I’m not sure.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Getty Publications for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great book and a great collection of queer history. This book truly helped me realize that even though the media does not show you, queer people have been documented for much longer than I thought. This book starts with the origins of queer photography in 1839, before reading this book I have only seen queer photography from the 1900s. I am very glad I read this book and that I was exposed to more queer photographs and queer artists throughout the decades.

Some nonfiction books, especially in art, can be hard to read but these authors make the subject easy to read and to understand. There was a good balance of information and photographs, and the information was never an overwhelming amount.

As a queer person and an artist, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learning more about both queer history and art history. And I even found some new favourite artworks in this book. Even though I got a digital ARC of this book, this is a book I could see myself buying to have a physical copy.

A fascinating query history book! I loved the variety of images and text. A book you want to keep out to reread.

Thanks to NetGalley and J. Paul Getty Museum for a copy of this ARC.

This is the type of book I need on my shelf, queer history is so important, I’m so glad this is getting published!

The collection of images compiled for this work, as well as the history of each piece, has obviously been extensively researched with dedication and passion. Queer Lens will make a wonderful resource for those seeking to learn more about queer art and will serve as inspiration to future generations of queer artists.