Ginger Liu

Ginger Liu

 Silver Winner: Single image category

The Nude

Ginger Liu had just completed a self-portrait series and decided to enter one of the images for competition. "I’d looked at past winners and saw how much they considered it a big deal to win an LPA award," she says. "Competitions are imperative. Winning a respected and industry-known competition like this is a selling point for photographers to market themselves and gain recognition. London is one of the most important cities in the art world."

The self-portrait was shot in 2009 and is part of a second series of shots. Ginger is also planning a third series. "The scars represent the efforts I went through to try and save my womb from an overactive fibroid," she explains.  "I had three separate surgeries and lost three years of my life. The title refers to a comment made to me by another woman when I told her that I had just recovered from a half hysterectomy. I was shocked because she was so repulsed. It affected me for some time. I realised that my sexuality had some bearing on the way people treated me when a man friend of mine told me that it was no big deal for me to have had a hysterectomy because “gay women don’t have children.” But it was a big deal: I am a woman first and I come from a very family orientated environment. I researched how other women felt about their operation, scars and identity. When I shared these images with other women, many of them told me that they were ashamed of their hysterectomy scars and some hadn’t dated in years. There are all these women who are hiding in shame from a very common operation. It all seemed rather ridiculous. So I hope that my art might encourage some women to feel okay about their scars."

Ginger studied at the University of Westminster and Central Saint Martins. Although photography is a passion, she works in media. Since moving to Los Angeles, where she works as an author and film journalist and has her own PR and production company, her love for photography has returned as one of her careers.

One of Ginger's images from “You’re Practically A Man” is currently on exhibition in Los Angeles at the New Puppy Gallery. She is in the process of retouching and reprinting larger images to exhibit around the world and is editing a photo essay called “The Johanneans,” which illustrates a reunion in Shanghai in 2009. There is a short short HD film and a travel memoir in this series. Ginger has just finished shooting film stills for a Hollywood indie movie and a portrait series on LA burlesque and drag performers is getting finalised for exhibition. Her goal is to exhibit in London and concentrate on photography full time.

Ginger Liu - LPA folio