This post was meant to be shared last night.

But thanks to a wonderfully filling dinner at Draft & Table, I fell asleep before I posted.

*********  First there was rain. The rain turned to snow, and the snow was as beautiful on the ground as it was falling.

There are two worlds in Little Rock.

The world you see in these pictures: a world of carefully balanced compositions, bright comforting colors, & images that I hope open up the possibility of Little Rock to you.

The second world you can’t see… it is the Little Rock I haven’t figured out yet how to photograph.

The Little Rock where unhoused people die on the streets during snow storm because we as a people are too tight-fisted and greedy to pool our money to build a shelter for people caught outdoors in this weather.

The Little Rock where at least 20% of our town’s children didn’t eat last week because the schools were closed.

The Little Rock where the church doors are boarded and locked unless it’s time to collect money from the congregation.

The Little Rock where ego driven whyte boyz drive their trucks around town like they’re still in Iraq, pulling guns on people who are driving too slow. Or trans. Or Black.

I try to be optimistic and positive about this town… After all I live here, this is my home.

And they’re beautiful pretty things to look at and see … the Bridges, the rivers, the architecture.

I think if I want to change the way I feel about Little Rock, I need to photograph - and journal - less about the stuff and more of the people.

And that - I think - is the real challenge of this project.

Piercing through that veil.

Seeing the beauty of this town is vital yes… But so is seeing the immense pain and suffering that beauty masks.

Here are a dozen pictures from last week around Little Rock (Jan 6-12)

The last picture is a picture of me.

A tranny with a camera.

I think it’s important to document that the artist behind this project is trans. A trans person looking at Little Rock in a way it has never been seen before (this photo was taken at LRs discovery museum… Y’all gotta get down there and see their new exhibits).

🌸🤍🧡🩷❤️🫶💜💙🩵🤍☃️ Ginger Olsen

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This is part of a year-long project for me - looking at Little Rock photographically in ways that it never has been.

I keep playing with the title, but really what we have here is Little Rock through the trans gaze.

Every day I post a picture on my Bluesky page (the link to all of my pages is in my “About” section).

Every Tuesday, I’ll share here my favorite pictures in a journal entry about the town.

If you see me out in the wild come up and say hi - that’s the other reason for the picture, so that you’ll recognize me and approach me and we can talk about your life and your experience in Little Rock.

And maybe I can add a photo of you to my Little Rock diary.

Sorry for the hashtag… I’m doing it solely for my ability to gather these posts and review the flow of the project from time to time

/#transgaze