Breathtaking portraits of America's gay community by Elle Perez

It’s not often that you get so hooked on someone’s portfolio that you find yourself engrossed in it, slack-jawed for nearly an hour, but that’s exactly what happened when I came across the work of Elle Perez. Focusing predominantly on American’s gay, gender variant, transgender, and genderqueer community, Elle’s portraits have a friendly rawness to them that comes with being completely immersed in the environment she was shooting.

Be it hard-hitting, honest studio portraits or sun-kissed, ragged snaps of Queer Radical Faerie sanctuaries of Tennessee, Elle’s photographs always have a hint of rebellion in them, perhaps influenced by her time photographing punk clubs when she was only 14. Pretty cool, huh? You can read a truly fascinating article with her here on We Are Wild