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LGBT San Francisco by Daniel Nicoletta

Glittering drag queens, gay politics and alternative theater: Nicoletta was at the heart of the gay mecca that was 1970s San Francisco.

Daniel Nicoletta (born 1954) has been a leading chronicler of the LGBT civil rights movement in San Francisco over the last 40 years. This is the first book dedicated to his powerful photographs documenting the journey of the burgeoning lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender mecca that was San Francisco in the 1970s through to the present. Nicoletta is best known for his iconic images of Harvey Milk, one of the world’s first openly gay elected officials, who was assassinated by a homophobic colleague in 1978. Nicoletta portrayed glittering drag queens, the alternative theater world and the steadfast bravery of same-sex couples trying to live their lives amid often adverse cultural sea changes. Today, Nicoletta continues to document the reverberations of Milk’s legacy. He serves as a key point person for LGBT civil rights and Milk-related research. In 2014, one of Nicoletta’s photographs was used on a US Harvey Milk Forever stamp. LGBT: San Francisco is an essential gay history and a stunning photographic work that is not to be missed.

"Its images portray ad milieu of turbulence and exuberance and powerful waves of grassroots political activism." (Gay and Lesbian Review)

"The collection showcases Nicoletta’s fine sense of composition, not to mention his sharp editorial eye and evocative visual aesthetic." (Lew Whittington New York Journal of Books)

"A self-described ‘Richard Avedon of the gay community,’ [Nicoletta] turned his lens on all of the Radical Faeries present during the 70s." (Trey Taylor Dazed)

"LGBT: San Francisco is a joyous, poignant and occasionally sombre record of the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, taken from an extraordinary archive. It is at once a celebration, an exercise in visibility and a timely reminder of how recently the battles for gay rights were won and how fragile those rights remain." (Chitra Ramaswamy The Guardian)

"It’s rare you leaf through a book of reportage and portraiture that makes you want to know what happened to every single person captured in every single frame. With photographer Daniel Nicoletta’s LGBT San Francisco a remarkable, transfixing record of the gay, lesbian, and trans communities from the very early 1970s to today, you’re compelled to think just that." (Mark Holgate VOGUE.com)

"Daniel Nicoletta’s photobook is the ultimate celebration of LGBTQ pride from history to present day … an indelible archive of the struggles and successes of the LGBTQ community" (Hunger)

"Captures the LGBT Civil Rights movement in a way no other photographer has" (Ian David Monroe Paper Magazine)

"LGBT: San Francisco―a first ever collection of the work Nicoletta has put into capturing the portraits of the community across an always moving and ever-changing socio-political climate." (Michael Valinsky Out.com)

• Hardcover
• Published by Reel Art Press, 2017
• English
• 9.8 x 1.2 x 12 inches (24.9 cm x 3.1 cm x 30.5 cm)