Tom Zimberoff was born in Los Angeles, a child of the Fifties. He was raised there and in Las Vegas, Nevada. As proficient with a clarinet as with a camera, he succumbed to the lure of photography while studying music at the USC School of Performing Arts. “Portrait photography,” he says, “is a predatory sport. I stalk my prey like a big-game hunter, look for a good clean shot, and try to avoid unnecessary wounds. Then I hang their heads on a wall to admire like trophies.”
Having begun his career in rock ‘n roll photography, touring with The Jackson-5, Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, and Stephen Stills among others, he moved over to television and motion picture stills for advertising. After that he embarked on a career in photojournalism, spending several years in, among many other places, Central America working for Time and other magazines as a member of the Sygma Photo Agency and, later, Gamma-Liaison. His photographs have appeared on the covers of Time, Fortune, Money, People, and numerous other magazines.
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With his latest project he has turned his lens to illustrate the authenticity of drag’s exponents, their multi-faceted and deeply personal expressions of identity and beauty. These portraits encourage discussion among those who are familiar with drag as much as they engage positively with those who are hostile to it, naive about how deep its roots extend. Drag culture occupies a niche of outsized social importance, calling out gender inequity by visualizing a stylized form of self-expression that both celebrates and promotes LGBTQ+ rights.
As diptychs, each portrait, a double portrait, consists of a color image portraying a performer’s burlesqued identity through makeup and costume juxtaposed with the reductive drama of a black-and-white image of the same subject, most makeup removed and turned out in little more than underwear, literally exposing the person underneath.
These stunning images below (featiured in MEDIUM .com) will hopefully soon be published and exhibited, the collection will include brief biographies and statements in the words of each drag queen (and a few drag kings). It is a work in progress for which he is applying to various philanthropic arts organizations for funding to bring it to fruition..
It is an exceptionally wonderful project that so deserves to reach its widest audience.
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https://x.com/tom_zimberoff?lang=enLabels: 2024, American Kabuki, Drag Strip, Medium, Tom Zimberoff
