A local queer, photographer shaking up the system through portraits

Julie Riemersma is a queer, local photographer focused on making an inclusive space for BIPOC and fellow 2SLGBTQ+ folx. She’s been taking photos for over 12 years, but most recently that her photography has really made its way into our beautiful community - with a focus on up-and-coming drag artists and queer portraits.

We asked her a few questions to find out more.

Yohomo: You’ve been making waves online lately with your drag portrait series! What inspired this shoot? How did you choose your subjects?

Julie Riemersma: Wow what a dream to be asked that! To be completely honest, I went through an unexpected breakup in June. All of a sudden I had so much free time on my hands and a dramatically reduced fear of rejection. So I just said fuck it!

What do I want? I want to shoot drag, so I'll message some drag artists and set up some shoots. I was really excited to bring my 12 years of fashion and portrait experience to these drag shoots and to try some video work with them as well. I made a point to chose artists of colour, trans artists, and drag kings, because I wanted to give photos to those who are typically more marginalized, even within the queer community. I wanted to work with artists who had a unique style and who were involved within the community, so I did some Instagram sleuthing, and slide into some dm's!

This series was also a great way to make some new friends and connections in the LGBTQ+ community. After my relationship ended, all of a sudden my daily queer connections plummeted, and I didn't want to live like that.

Tell us about your latest project... How did it come about?

For this creative, I approached Matthew [King] about doing a beauty editorial that was grungy, sexy and androgynous. Matthew came up with an amazing makeup mood board, and that was the jumping-off point for casting Noah and the styling.

I've always loved darker, sexy, fetish inspired shoots. I realized I didn't really have anything like that in my portfolio, so I wanted to do it from a feminine perspective. I reached out to these amazing designers Rannka, Vitality, Black Line Accessories, and The Men's Room to pick up pieces that would fit into that world. I also hand-painted the red and green backgrounds, I'm crafty like that.

Tell us about the star of the shoot...

Noah was very sweet and fun to shoot! I'm always a little jealous of the makeup artist, because I feel like they get more time to chit chat with the models. Especially because in my studio, the makeup area is in a separate room. He was a really great model, and made the job of choosing selects super hard! Go check out his Instagram! He's a cool cat.

You might answer this earlier but what is your relationship with gender?

Haha it's complicated? No, but actually I think the times are finally catching up to my thoughts on gender. I love that people are now more free to play with gender anywhere on the spectrum, I find the binary quite boring. I identify as a woman, but I've certainly never jived with societies expectations of me in that way. I pretty much raised myself from a young age, so I've never wanted kids. I've always rebelled against the idea that women can't do certain things because it's not ladylike.

As a kid, I was super rambunctious, always talking, and making messes. All of which I was reprimanded for, and made to read books like The Ladies' Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness. Turns out I just had undiagnosed ADHD, and it's a real problem how little support girls get for that vs boys. I'm a slightly chaotic, passionate, tall woman. In other words, I can be a lot. It took me until my 20's to start to feel comfortable in my own skin. It corresponded with my realizing I was bi, suddenly so many things made way more sense. I've gone through a few iterations of woman, from a tomboy as a kid to femme in my early 20s, but now I feel really comfortable in a femme-ish non-binary world. My curvy body has always been a little at odds with my sense of self, but now that I like to teeter on the line of men's and women's styling, it feels good!

This was an entirely queer shoot from beginning to end, right? How did you make that happen?

It ended up being all queer, which is always my personal goal. The more queers the better! I slid into Matthew's dm's because I was a fan of his work. I knew he was part of the alphabet mafia, and we lucked out on casting Noah for his look. I've been asking modelling agencies for their BIPOC, queer, trans and non-binary models for years, and it's exciting to see they are starting to catch on to the demand.

It was also a smaller team because I did the styling and set design, so that helped.

Tell us a bit about you as a queer photographer as well... how are you finding navigating the photography landscape in the city?

It was certainly challenging to be a female photographer at the beginning of my career. In part because of the small nature of the Toronto industry, and in part because it's very male-dominated. Walking onto the set, I always got mistaken for the makeup artist, stylist, and on a really really good day, the model. On the other side of that, modelling agencies felt comfortable sending me their young models in development, because I was not a creep who was going to ask them to take their top off (it happens, a lot).

At first I found it really hard to connect to the Toronto queer community as a femme presenting bi woman because I think I get presumed straight a lot. I now have a naked woman tattooed on my arm and I wear a lot of chains, so that helps. I didn't really feel safe putting my sexuality into the public eye and in my Instagram bio until recently. When I first started shooting in 2010, it was nowhere near as celebrated as it is now. I was honestly worried about losing clients. Now I'm happy to only work with clients who are not homophobic. It's been a journey for me to fully embrace the queerness of myself and my work, and I finally feel like my full self.

Now I think being a queer female fashion photographer is a huge advantage because there are not that many of us out there. I have a unique perspective on gender and sexuality that comes across in the comfortable cool presence of the models I photograph. It's important to me to shoot from a place of empowerment and never in an objectifying way.

Any big plans for what you’d like to do coming up?

I'm my own biggest competition, I'm always trying to do something innovative and push myself creatively. The dream has always been to work on jobs with bigger and better budgets as I improve. I art directed all these images with just a few team members and zero budget. I can only imagine what my work will look like, if I just get to focus on the photography! I'm so excited to work on more collaborative projects with innovative designers, stylists and art directors.

I'd love to shoot the promo images for Drag Race Canada or a fashion editorial for a major magazine featuring queer artists. I'm working on more editorial portraiture with queer celebrities, artists, musicians, and writers and I'm so excited to work on those types of shoots. I'm also teaching a few photography classes and mentoring BIPOC photographers, which I find incredibly rewarding. I'm a huge nerd, I love talking about photography.

Photography, styling and retouching: Julie Riemersma @julieriemersma
Makeup Artist: Matthew King @Mttthw
Model: Noah @coworboy with Want Management @wantmanagement