Rating: 
Summary: Body Alchemy - quality FTM portraiture.
Review: "Body Alchemy" fills a much-needed niche in the word of transgender literature: a photography book dedicated to the female-to-male individual. It is also a very touching (no pun intended) portrait of it's author, Loren Cameron. Check out the book, of this wonderful FTM photographer.
Rating:
Summary: Body Alchemy - quality FTM portraiture.
Review: "Body Alchemy" fills a much-needed niche in the word of transgender literature: a photography book dedicated to the female-to-male individual. It is also a very touching (no pun intended) portrait of it's author, Loren Cameron. Check out the book, of this wonderful FTM photographer.
Rating:
Summary: Green with envy
Review: ...I am very much outside this book's intended audience, to say the least...The photos border on Arbus-esque but offer a more compassionate less spectacle treatment of the subjects. I guess that's a point well demontsrated when the phographer spends as much time in front of the camera as well as behind. You are more inclined to look at these unusual subjects with reverence not repulsion. The book overall is beautifully put toether. Sparse and poignantly so...
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal photographic record of ftm transsexuals
Review: A seminal book - a powerful photographic record of ftm transsexuals in society. This is the book that first made me acknowledge my own transsexualism - the mirror I had been looking for all my life. Cameron's photography, both of himself and others, is stark black and white imagery of the anger, pain and emergent joy associated with transition. A wide variety of men of different ages, backgrounds, jobs, families, apperance, likes and dislikes, all sharing one common thread. Text in the book is minimal but well written and apposite, autobiographically topped and tailed by Cameron. Includes some pictures of genital modification - very well received amongst the transmen I know as no-one else has ever compiled a readily available book showing what the results of these surgeries can look like. Fascinating, triumphant, joyful - this is the book that shows the liberating experience of finally becoming oneself after years trapped in the wrong body. Well done, Mr Cameron ! ! and thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Much needed realism
Review: As a student of sociology and gender studies, I have become aware of the limited resources for a person wanting to learn more about transgenderism and transexualism. Whether the reader is considering transsexual surgery, or is just curious, this book is a great resource in a wasteland of misinformation and misunderstanding on the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: A remarkable self-portrait of a female-to-male transsexual.
Review: Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits is photographer Loren Cameron's intensely personal photo documentary of female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs). A transsexual himself, Loren Cameron brings a sensitive, sophisticated insider's eye to his subject matter. Using documentary style, a series of before-and-after photographs of FTMs in Cameron's transsexual community, his own striking self-portraits, and intimate autobiographical text, he invites the viewer to experience this transformational rite of passage. Body Alchemy includes intimate, narrative photographs of Loren and his partner, Kayt, a lesbian-identified woman whose relationship to Cameron affords her much to say about the fluidity of gender and queer identity. Finally, Body Alchemy includes photographs of genital reconstructions, accompanied by text from three anonymous FTMs who discuss how they feel about their surgeries. ³Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Dianne Arbus among many others have all trained their lenses on the transgendered figure. Never have the transgendered seriously photographed their own. Not until Loren Cameron, that is.² ‹ Kate Bornstein, author, Gender Outla
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Inspiring
Review: Cameron has done something special for all FTMs. He has given us the hope and the realization that we can do it. We can look at those that went before us and know that we can become the person we are meant to be. This book is an inspiration, and it's so beautiful. I've looked at it so many times, and I never fail to feel the hope it brings to me.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Inspiring
Review: I purchased this book as a gift for a f2M friend of mine who drew a LOT of hope from it. Loren's camera and words have a strong impact. Understanding one's self, our true nature, is vital. Body Alchemy is a valuable lesson in that.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreams can Come True
Review: I purchased this book as a gift for a f2M friend of mine who drew a LOT of hope from it. Loren's camera and words have a strong impact. Understanding one's self, our true nature, is vital. Body Alchemy is a valuable lesson in that.
Rating:
Summary: Green with envy
Review: I'm a minority. I am very much outside this book's intended audience, to say the least. I am a straight bio-male. And I can say without any homosexual tension, that Mr. Cameron you are built like a god. The photos border on Arbus-esque but offer a more compassionate less spectacle treatment of the subjects. I guess that's a point well demontsrated when the phographer spends as much time in front of the camera as well as behind. You are more inclined to look at these unusual subjects with reverence not repulsion. The book overall is beautifully put toether. Sparse and poignantly so. Now the "green with envy" part. Even if Cameron is 5'3", for me to stand next to him would be totally emasculating. There aren't a lot of "real" men out there who are willing to go out to the gym to look that ripped. I feel so flabby.
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