Venus Virgin Tomarz

• Prize
  Honorable Mention in Other / Photography
• Company
  Robert Earp Photomaker/Visual Artist
• Lead
  Robert Earp
• Team
  Robert Earp Photographer/creative collaborator/art director , Venus Tomarz/creative collaborator/costume and prop maker/stylist, Rufina Breskin senior retoucher, Alejandrina De La Rosa Make Up,
• Client
  Venus Tomarz
• Video
  Link to video

The audacious and electrifying conceptual photography of Robert Earp focuses on the ‘surreal realness’ of transgendering with Venus Virgin Tomarz – Named after Earp’s ‘divalicious’ collaborator and muse. The true story of Venus Virgin Tomarz is told in hyper-colourful composite photographs that recall the sci-fi kitsch of yesteryear. “Venus’s idea of taking 1960s sci-fi as the metaphor of her story of transgender, I just thought that was brilliant,”

“At art school, my mentor, John Cato, explained that there are two kinds of photographers – there are ‘takers’ and there are ‘makers’. The takers are your photojournalists, documentary and reportage photographers, whereas your makers are the ones that make a photograph from scratch say by building a set or finding the perfect location. It starts with a conceptual idea and they build it into something. I immediately recognised what I was. I was a maker.