Mark Seliger on Christopher Street | PDN Photo of the Day

Mark Seliger is best known for his portraits of rock stars and and other glamours celebrities. The subjects of his latest series are not famous, but they are no less intense or self-possessed. “On Christopher Street: Transgender Stories,” on view until January 7 at 231 Projects in New York City, is a show of handsome black and white portraits of people who, sometimes at personal great cost, have defined their gender in their own terms. (Rizzoli recently published a book of the work. In January, the series will be shown at Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles.) Christopher Street has been a gathering place for New York City’s LGBT community for decades, and is a few blocks from Seliger’s studio. Three years ago he began photographing people the neighborhood, posing them on stoops or on the street, and talking with them about their stories. Says Seliger in a statement, “The portraits were taken in the heart of Greenwich Village, walking alongside the brave souls who live the realities of one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time. Their faces are studies of beauty, struggle, passion, and hope.”