"What do butches look like today?" That was the question photographer Meg Allen says she set out to answer when she first began photographing Bay Area butches five years ago.
"I came of age in the 1990s," said Allen, an Oakland freelance photographer, in a recent interview, "when it was not cool to be a dyke, even less cool to be a butch. I wanted to show the world what butches look like, how beautiful they are. I wanted to show what they were wearing and how they were living, and put them in the limelight."
Allen, 37 and "definitely a butch" herself, shot hundreds of portraits of butches since then, many posted on her website, megallenstudio.com. A selection of them will be featured in her upcoming solo show at the Glama-Rama Salon and Gallery, 304 Valencia St., SF, from May 17-July 3. The opening reception is on Sat., May 21 from 7:30-10 p.m.
A Bay Area native, Allen grew up on the peninsula. "I always had masculine tendencies and liked to do all sorts of things that boys liked to do, like riding bikes, shooting BB guns, and climbing trees. I wanted to be a professional baseball player and played ball with the boys in the neighborhood," she said. "My Mom has since told me that her gay friends told her they had always suspected I was a lesbian."
From the age of 5, Allen said, she was writing stories, and by high school, taking pictures and editing the high school yearbook. "I was shy and had social anxiety," she said. "But behind the camera, I was relaxed and comfortable, and really enjoyed documenting what was going on."
Allen studied creative writing at San Francisco State, and after graduating, worked in construction. When she was laid off in 2011, Allen decided she would study engineering. "I wanted to do something practical, study something where I thought I could have a stable career."
But her plans were derailed when relatives offered her a temporary job in France. "When I got there," she said, "my aunt and uncle asked about my future plans. I think they picked up my uncertainty and ambivalence when I told them I was going to study engineering. But my uncle really pressed me to talk about what I really wanted to do. The question kind of surprised me. Without thinking, I blurted out that I'd really love to take pictures.
"My uncle really encouraged me to go for my dream," she said. "He told me that once I found what I really wanted to do I should just start walking toward it."
When she got back to California, Allen decided to dive right into assembling a body of work. "I thought, okay, I'll ask my butch friends if they would pose," she explained. "But most were initially very reluctant. I understood their hesitation. When I was younger and felt confused about my gender, I just wanted to be out of the spotlight, too."
Allen said she set up a light in her apartment, where she lived with two friends who had just had a baby. One evening when Allen got home, one of the new Moms was holding the baby, and "I saw this beautiful shot. That portrait has turned out to be one of my all-time favorites," she said.
With some pictures to show her other friends, they gradually relented, although she "had to do quite a bit of begging" to convince people to be photographed. As people began to appreciate their own beauty in her pictures, it became easier to find subjects.
"I realized I could capture butch women the way few people had seen them before," she said. "I loved the way they cut their hair, the way they wore boots, the swagger, the confidence, and how they interacted with each other," she said. "What I learned is that nothing has really changed when it comes to butches.
"There has always been the entire range, from a soft butch with a more feminine personality but an outward masculine esthetic all the way to the other extreme of women, who have had top surgery and have started to use male or ambiguous pronouns. And of course there is everyone in-between."
As Allen's portfolio grew, she was invited to show her work in half-a-dozen shows, including solo shows at Cafe Gabriela in Oakland in 2014, and at the Lexington Club in San Francisco in 2013. Last year, Allen was in group exhibitions in London and New York City. At the same time, she began picking up freelance jobs in television, making enough money to "feed her art habit" and pay her bills.
Right now, Allen says she is "incredibly excited" about the show at GlamaRama. According to Facebook, she said, 300 people are planning to attend, and another 1,300 are "interested." After the show, Allen hopes she'll find a publisher to do a book. In the meantime, she has another project in the works, but would prefer not to discuss the details. "It's queer," she said. "I have to keep the rest under wraps."