Queer Latino photographer explores code-switching with style

The business of fitting in.

Venezuelan-born, Los Angeles-based photographer Ricardo Diaz has worked with numerous celebrities over the years — names Dua Lipa, Amanda Lepore, Kylie Jenner, Gottmik, and Christina Aguilera, among others — and previously collaborated with Out for a vintage pin-up photo shoot featuring Fantasia Royale Gaga.

In a new photo shoot shared exclusively with Out, Diaz explores the code-switching tactics that people in the LGBTQ+ community must adhere to in their professional lives. Due to recent events, Latinos are now also code-switching more intensely than ever for their own safety.

Diaz's new photo shoot, titled Code-Switching With Style, was also made by an all-queer team of professionals in front of and behind the camera.

Check out the photos and narrative of Code-Switching With Style by Ricardo Diaz (@officialricardodiaz) below.

"This shoot speaks a lot to how our community has to dilute themselves in professional daytime settings," Diaz tells Out. "The idea of having to play within the bounds of a censored heteronormative culture — while still rebelling a bit through style — is what pushed me to create this series."

The photographer elaborates, "The story we worked on centered around the expectation of normalcy among queer professionals (while at work) in order to establish oneself as serious and deserving of respect from coworkers."

"This push for 'professional homogeneity' tends to be at odds with the nature of being queer (which, by its very definition, means 'strange' and 'odd')," Diaz observes.

"So our model starts the series in a well-groomed and polished professional look in the daytime," he explains. "Slivers in the styling hint at an underlying edge, as seen through his work pants with a slit."

According to Diaz, this series was meant "make a statement through fashion, which tends to be a place of solace for us in these bland times."

"As the day progresses, so does our model," he adds.

The narrative advances, and "the model is seen walking the streets in a professional but more stylish and daring outfit.'

"Queer code-switching with style, for me, meant going from 'groomed and preppy' during the day to more 'edgy' and 'explorative' at night," Diaz says.

"Once the sun has set, our model is no longer tied to the constraints of his 9-to-5 job," the photographer explains.

"This allows his true, exploratory self to come out in the form of a daring and flowing black look set against the Vessel in Hudson Yards," Diaz notes.

"The series concludes as our model dons an open top," he comments.

"Our model is now free to revel in the night embracing his skin," Diaz observes, "standing as a stark contrast to his completely covered form earlier in his day."

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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RICARDO DIAZ (@officialricardodiaz) • Instagram photos and videos

Photographer RICARDO DIAZ @officialricardodiaz
Model COLLIN ROBINSON @collin_robinson22
Stylist APOLLO BUAL @apollobual
Stylist assistant MIA ROSE @i.am.missmiarose
Stylist assistant CHIBUEZE ACHEBE @bezachebe