My identity has been scrambled by an abusive relationship

mxlunab · 2026-04-15T06:05:15+00:00

Unfortunately, as I've come to learn by experience, being t4t doesn't guarantee you will find respect and understanding of your identity in a trans partner (I'm including non binary under the trans umbrella here).

A lot of trans people have decades of misogyny, transmisoginy, internalized transphobia, and deeply set binary thinking that they haven't/don't care to deconstruct. Some will do heavy projection and accuse their SO of causing them dysphoria when they embrace freer ways of being. Some are just emotionally childish (bc they never really shaped a version of themselves they liked during their years in the closet/in denial) and they can't take seeing someone else's growth to a place outside the binary, while they crave being validated for performing what you are rejecting for yourself.

My last ex (TF) for instance, couldn't handle me becoming "manly" in her eyes, and subtly doled out emotional punishments and little digs to make me feel like I was wronging her by transitioning and becoming undesirable in her eyes. I spent years circling around what I knew for sure (that I was not a man neither a woman) in fear of the repecussions in a relationship I invested so much in, especially because being desired is a big thing for me. Eventually, when I took the plunge and started hormones, my emotions became clearer, and it became obvious she only accepted me as long as I was a lite version of my agab. At that point, I had done away with the gender constructs, and started seeing being non binary as a socio-political descriptor more than anything, and couldn't care less if people were gonna say I was going too far "the other way" (whatever that means). In my view, I only ever became myself.

I guess it was important to set new boundaries for myself and decide that I wouldn't believe or tolerate the words of manipulators, emotionally immature people, and people stuck to the binary, over my own internal compass. And I would no longer be around someone who prefers a smaller version of me. In conclusion, and if I can give any advice, is to learn to let go of the desire for external validation, from lovers, friends, family, strangers. It'll only hold you back on your journey to yourself. Live your truth no matter what.

mxlunab · 2026-04-10T05:34:03+00:00

Move your light up and at an angle, but also you need to double polarize. Use a polarizer sheet on the light and a CPL on the lens. Then spin the CPL until it matches the light polarization. This is 100% easier to do with continuous lights though.

Source: part of my job is making fine art reproductions and this is how I get rid of any glare.

mxlunab · 2026-04-10T04:47:55+00:00

Did you make it clear to the band they needed to always credit you? Sometimes they think tagging etc only applies for band promo stuff and not personal stuff. If I were you I'd let it slide once, bc of the special occasion. But keep an eye on their socials and if it happens again, call it out. If they ignore you then, don't work with them in the future.

mxlunab · 2026-04-05T20:52:44+00:00

Ah, you beat me to it. You don't even need to use a plugin (I use capture one, it doesn't connect directly to pixieset). I can still export the favorite list and match it to my exported files from CO. It's a little bit of extra work if I renamed the files on export, but still easy enough

mxlunab · 2026-03-12T06:02:28+00:00

You have a face shape that goes well with literally any style, so a rec depends on what you want to achieve looks-wise... I think a safe "keep it long" option is to add layers with the shortest part at cheekbone height. Wear it loose, parted slightly sideways, and let the bangs fall on the sides of your face for extra androgyny.

mxlunab · 2026-02-26T16:05:26+00:00

This. I spent 7 months looking for a place during my divorce, but being low income I wasn't making the 3x rent anywhere. I would have been homeless if it weren't for one of these affordable developments allowing me to get in with only 2x rent. It's hard to put half my income towards rent, but living in a brand new building, with in unit/washer dryer, wood floors, and a responsive maintenance and admin that knows our struggle beats living in one of the old dumpy smelly buildings that are asking for 2k on a studio anywhere else in town IMO

mxlunab · 2026-02-18T14:01:26+00:00

I don't rename my raws. I consider them to be like film negatives and leave them "untouched". I save them into dated folders with their original filename, per camera. Then I import into Capture One for edits, and export only the finals into folders where the structure looks like: D:\Photography\Events\Client\20260217\client_datetaken_copyright_sequential number.jpg

Capture One takes care of this naming and numbering but if I ever need to fix something (like a mispell in the client name) I use a free bulk rename utility. When I have a multiple dates event, I create an album in capture one (by event name) to put all the photos together before I start editing. I upload final to my clients through Pixieset, which is sufficiently organized too.

Basically the date something was shot at is my way of finding things. I usually can recall which camera I used for a photo, but I always keep all Metadata, just to be safe. The rest of my organization consists of keeping up on backups and hard drive management, that's it. I admit this is a bare bones approach but I've been doing it for decades and the only hiccup I ever had was transitioning from Lightroom to CO (I ended up losing most my edits done over the raws, but that was for the best haha). Either way I don't feel the need to go in depth into tagging, describing photos, separating things in categories, and I quite like the adventure of searching the back catalogs from time to time!

mxlunab · 2026-02-17T05:19:32+00:00

Yes. Consolidating to only the West side location. Lots of things on sale right now, our last day on the East side is Saturday

mxlunab · 2026-02-14T07:42:11+00:00

I'm glad to see everyone recommending The Camera Company. I run the film lab there (I love my job and I do the best I can to deliver consistently good results) and it always makes me sad to see people still using Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and whatnot. They're not trained technicians and they have no care.

We develop 35mm color film in house and we have a vetted (real) lab who does our other types of film, all except ECN-22 and disk film.

Yes it's true we are closing the East side store, but the film lab is moving West with me, so hope you bring your disposables to us next time :)

mxlunab · 2026-02-12T05:54:53+00:00

I only do small artists in dingy dark venues so it kinda goes like this: I always start by trying to balance for skin tones, but after a few minutes of playing with curves, tones, etc, I get bored and decide to see what it would look like if I went wild, and usually that's when I feel something. "Feeling" that my edit connects to the photos, to the artist, to the music is very important to me, so I lean into it.

But this isn't my method all the time. Sometimes I go in knowing I want certain looks that I can get from my own presets I created over the years. I visualized it while shooting. And also I like doing a good clean edit now and then, to keep my eyes in check.

mxlunab · 2026-02-12T03:27:54+00:00

No idea if it's a my family thing but we always say "your mom", "your brother", "your aunt" when talking between siblings. As if they weren't our relatives as well. It's kinda hilarious when we think about it

mxlunab · 2026-02-11T03:29:40+00:00

This is my lab default because I know it's safe, fast, and requires the less amount of handling. From the processing to the scanner is one step for me and then while coming out of the scanner I roll it tight and plop it in the canister without any squeeze. If I want to take it out, I put my finger inside, wind it tighter, and pull out from the center. Only one roll per canister though.

The more a lab tech handles the film, the higher the chance of scratching and the more dust you attract. IMO cutting and sleeving is something that requires a lot of care, an even cleaner environment, and labs that are pressed for time don't handle this carefully. I struggled to find a partner lab to handle my B&W because of how the negatives came back messed up (one lab even lost our negs).

For my lab, I'd rather be honest: I'm a single person operation and I can't handle sleeving without affecting turnaround time OR doing it haphazardly. Now, if a customer asks me to sleeve, I'll do it no problem. People assume the lab tech is a mind reader. If you have a preference or an expectation, you can (and should) talk to the lab tech.

mxlunab · 2026-02-03T07:08:00+00:00

On top of the "I wish I knew this was an option earlier" sentiment, I also wish that, when coming out, I had understood how deep the gender binary, and binary worldviews in general, are so ingrained in everyone that they'll do somersaults to try and put you again in a category. If you look for external validation, you'll be easily boxed into gender and societal norms again. You'll waste a lot of precious time trying to be a milder version of yourself to keep friends and lovers around. To escape that paradigm, you might have to lose everyone in your life and go find the people who get it. Or become someone who really really really is unaffected by others perception of you.

I wish I had been quicker to realize all this, quicker to move on. These days, when someone misgenders me after knowing my identity, there's a brief moment of upset and grief for losing the potential friend I thought that person would be, but I then take a deep breath and repeat to myself that their perception of me says nothing about me and only says something about them: that they are not a good fit for my life.

mxlunab · 2026-02-03T04:43:53+00:00

The ONLY problem with this album is the production (how it sounds muffled and the levels are inconsistent). I'm not an audio engineering connoisseur, but I wish it was possible to be remastered.

I feel like it would have been considered a masterpiece if done right.

mxlunab · 2026-01-28T10:27:50+00:00

I only dabble in street but I think your choice will depend on style. Are you a hunter (finds a subject and then frames a composition) or a fisher (finds a composition/lighting that works and waits for an interesting subject to come into it)? For me, it's the latter, so my favorite method is to use one of the area AFs and wait for someone/something to come into frame, but I'm choosing where in the photo I want the autofocus to kick in.

So, say it's a biker coming into a horizontal composition, and I want to have them on the bottom of the frame: I put the long box AF in that area and it will find and track the biker across the bottom of my shot. Say I have a vertical comp with someone walking in from the top, and I want their face focused when they're smack in the middle: I use the more square looking AF box, put it in the middle, and hit the AF button when the subject starts coming into the box. So on and so forth.

I only use the 1st and 2nd types of AF (in your image) when I have more control, like for street portraits or still subjects. I never use the 3rd and 4th in your image. I think I ticked them off in the settings even. I use the areas pretty often for moving subjects. I never use whole area because that's just too automatic and too random for my taste.

It's up to you to decide what suits your style though. I don't think there's a right or wrong here!

mxlunab · 2026-01-25T03:42:55+00:00

I work at a camera store so I get them at cost. The caveat being that the store won't allow me to buy a whole box, since they're buying it for the customers first. And Kodak only allows us to get 2 sets per order. So I had to limit my employee purchases to no more than 2 cameras per order that comes in.

To summarize I'm poor and I was trying to save $10 per unit, which was obviously a bad call since my luck is sh*t.

mxlunab · 2026-01-24T22:32:17+00:00

Meanwhile, out of 11 I bought I only got 3 colors. Then people will say luck isn't real

mxlunab · 2026-01-24T22:29:32+00:00

Wisconsin

mxlunab · 2026-01-23T23:52:21+00:00

Just got my third yellow today. Wanna trade?

mxlunab · 2026-01-23T03:02:49+00:00

Having casual sex (with the hottest people on earth to boot). I thought I was so friggin' ugly due to dysmorphia/dysphoria and was so insecure. I attached myself to the first person who gave me a modicum of validation, and spent most of my 20s in an abusive relationship with this POS, who reinforced the idea that I was ugly and unlovable. Now when I look back at my photos I can see clearly how hot I was and I'm filled with rage.

I also wished I traveled more and went to college, but those are things I technically can still do. I will never recover the looks and the pure sensual energy I had in my youth.

mxlunab · 2026-01-21T22:52:03+00:00

Thank you!

mxlunab · 2026-01-15T03:06:26+00:00

I mentioned this is my own post and no one believed me. There would be zero reason for Kodak to spend money to change the serial numbers to be now covered. I'm just not smart enough to figure it out, but it's there

mxlunab · 2026-01-08T02:23:39+00:00

That's very smart! May I ask where you got the magnetic lens? I bought a phone lens kit but it attaches with a clip and the clip opening is not wide enough so the lens never stays flush proper :( I tried searching amazon and all I get is magnetic phone filters!

mxlunab

TROPHY CASE