Cyrsti's Condo

The past comes from Paris in the 60's from the Christer Stromholm collection: [Photo: < http://abcn.ws/IhkOwB > Suzannah and Sylvia, 1962] The second is from the present. An unbelievable picture of Jenna Talackova from the Miss Universe Pageant. As a side light, if you ever have a chance to see one of the "Hooter's" national bikini pageants. That's where Jenna belongs!

Always nice to look back!

Some where in my dim past here on the Condo I promised more pictures from the Christer Strömholm: Les Amies de Place Blanch exhibition at the " New York International Center of Photography". The exhibit is described as raising profound issues about identity, sexuality, and gender - features 40 photographs, historical publications, and ephemera documenting young transgender males in the heart of Paris’ red-light district in the 1960's. Here is a picture of "Belinda":

From ABC News comes a story called:    Les Amies de Place Blanche: Transvestites of 1960′s Paris Christer Strömholm (1918-2002) is considered one of the great photographers of the 20th century, though he is little known outside of his native Sweden. Arriving in Paris in the late 1950′s, Strömholm settled in the Place Blanche, home to the Moulin Rouge, in the heart of the city’s red-light district.  There he befriended the “ladies of the night,” transgendered males who were struggling to live as women and raising money for sex-change operations. "Gina" At the time in President Charles de Gaulle’s ultra-conservative France, transvestites were outlawed and regularly harassed and arrested by the gendarmes for being “men dressed as women outside the period of carnival.” Strömholm photographed his subjects, whom he called his “les amies de Place Blanche (girlfriends of Place Blanche) in their hotel rooms, in bars and on the streets