Gay Couples From The Past

During his travels around the world, French screenwriter and director Sébastien Lifshitz has been collecting old photos of gay couples that he found at flea markets or in antiquarian shops. Then he decided to put them together in a book. It's called The Invisibles: Vintage Portraits of Love and Pride, and it's a collection of photos of gay people openly showing their affection for each other in a time when being homosexual was a lot more taboo than it is now.

Of course it's impossible to say all the people in these pictures actually are gay, but, as Lifshitz says himself; "I don't know these people - they are anonymous to me. I can't even really say that each person photographed into the book is gay, except when it's obvious. What I like is that there are different levels of reading these photos - I would say three levels to be exact. The first one is the pictures of obviously gay single people or couples, the second is the pictures of people which can be seen as 'undefined' (we're not sure) and the third level is the ones that are obviously not gay but playing with a gay attitude (cross-dresser, some 'garconnes,' etc.) I love the ambiguity and diversity of these pictures. These photographs ask questions."

Here are some of the photos from the book.

Source 1

Source 2