Love knows no boundaries - not age, race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. In his "All Love Is Equal" photo series, New York-based photographer Braden Summers set out to drive this point home by taking beautiful photos of lesbian and gay couples around the world.
Summers, who identifies himself as gay, traveled to France, India, Lebanon, Brazil, South Africa, the U.S., and the U.K. to take photographs for his Kickstarter-funded portrait photography project (which has raised over $23K). It took Summers about six weeks to create these dramatic and romantic scenes depicting only gay people couples. He mentioned that models were used to underscore the images' impression of a perfect romance.
"A large driving force behind creating this series was actually less about affecting the gay community directly, and more about giving the general population a way to relate to gay imagery which is devoid of sex, victimization, or banality – themes that might usually prevent some folks from connecting," Summers explains. "When thinking of iconic romance, ask yourself if any imagery comes to mind that is not showing heterosexual couples? Probably not. I would like to use this work as a platform to discuss why that is and how to change it."
Hopefully, Summers' beautiful photos will serve to put a more intimate and human face on an issue that has angry and passionate supporters on both sides of the fence in countries around the world. Given the long struggle of the LGBT community and the events in Russia over the past year, Summers' work should remind us that we should strive for equal rights and should love our neighbor, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.
As a gay man, Summers was tired of the LGBT community being represented as either hyper-sexualized or victimized. So he set out to create beautiful and simply romantic pictures of only cute couples.
Kickstarter helped him raise over $23K and travel to France, India, Lebanon, Brazil, South Africa, and the U.K.
"When thinking of iconic romance, ask yourself if any imagery comes to mind that is not showing heterosexual couples? Probably not".
