"Jay holds my face between their hands gently, I imagine­, then lays its flat, reflective surface down between drawings on my studio floor.  The shutter clicks and my doorbell rings. I tell Jay and get up to accept a package for my neighbors. When I come back into frame of our video call, they say the way I stand actually looks great and to keep posing. I am wearing my sweatpants. Jay informs me they blend into the frames of their phone so perfectly.  We’ve moved to the metal shelf next to my studio ‘couch’, where one side is toothbrush, a bottle of hormone gel and items alike and the other one is ink, pens, a staple gun, and other frequently used tools of mine.  I ask them how I look, if my pose looks silly. Jay replies that the way I’m sitting on a pair of art handling gloves is perfect for the shot and I smile while they adjust their camera. They have forgotten that I am not there to see the whole picture that is being taken. Yet I have full control of the frame my body is positioned in.  “Technically, you just could have sent me a photo and I put it on the screen. No one would have known.” “Oh. Yeah. But this feels right. Right?” Both of us relax and melt into each other’s pictures in a way I cannot fully explain. But we do not worry about each other’s anxiety in a way that actually feels caring. I don’t think about the sound of the shutter, since once it arrives in Berlin, Jay has long taken a picture.  So I just look at my face and don’t attempt to smile. Occasionally I look out of my window to watch the S-Bahn drive by over a bridge in the not so far distance."
Felix Deiters @flx_dtrs x Jay Steinert @jayboerd.st, 2022
as a part of the collaborative photo-art project "trans* artist portraits" which showcases artists outside the cisnormative view 💙

Felix and I talked about our collaborative approach to this project. In the end we settled on the idea of a hybrid photo shoot. Felix was physically in Berlin, I was in his studio in Weimar taking him with me - live on my laptop. Felix' point of view is part of the end result and is added to the picture as a text. Thank you, Felix, for the encouragment and trying out something new with me! ✨

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