Renée Jacobs, a photojournalistic turned civil rights lawyer turned erotic documentarian, uses  photography to explore her own sexuality and to listen and give voice to the desire of her co-collaborators. Joyful, intense, alluring and lustful, each image is a story grounded in visualizing felt emotion. Jacobs notes; “ I switched the lens and the lens switched me.”

In this book group, Renée Jacobs discusses, among other things:

Standing in your own light

Carving a space to listen to co-collaborators

Desire needing context

Twin motivators of loss and longing

Relating to Gordon Parks’ experience of needing Paris

Widening technical exposure, experiment

The luck to have mad genius friends

Inspiration from Japanese bookmaking techniques

The rule of 6 twists to pop French bubbly

Referenced in the episode

L'Oeil de Photographie- PARIS

Sinners Exhibit in Paris Video

Photo de Femmes

Cynthia McAdams

Alice Austin House

Smith Colleges - Voice of Feminism Oral History Project 

Body; The Photography Book - Nathalie Herschdorfer 

Fan the Flames ; Queer Positions in Photography at the Ontario Art Museum 

Art & Queer Culture - Catherine Lord & Richard Meyer

Aperture 218 Spring 2015 - Queer 

Joan E Biren - Dyke Show Lesbian Images in Photo 1850 

Renée Jacobs Website | Instagram

Engage with J. Sybylla Smith  https://www.jsybyllasmith.com Instagram @jsybylla and Facebook @j.sybylla.smith