Haitian portrait photographer Zarita Zevallos originally wanted to create a series of work relating to music (she had a hankering to create photos where she could draw waves around her subjects), but, she says, “as time went by and I was confronted with what was happening in the world and how the LGBT community was being attacked by many governments, I got the idea that I wanted the concept to be about exploration of masculinity—what it meant, or if it even had a true definition.”

Zevallos invited men with differing identities—from transgender to gay, to sexually fluid, to homophobic—to tell her about their perceptions of masculinity and whether they’d felt rejected by their society. She took what she learned from each, photographed the subjects and sewed designs onto each picture inspired by what they told her. “The sewing part was extremely difficult and time-consuming for me,” the photographer admits. “I did one picture [at a time] after work, and sometimes I would get frustrated and rip the pictures up.” But she persevered.

The photos originally were in color, with a white background, but Zevallos felt the final product needed something extra, so she converted them to black and white, and then Photoshopped a background color that complemented the thread’s color, “thus coming up with the title for this series, ‘Koktel,’ which is Haitian Creole for ‘cocktail,'” she says. “For me, a woman, a cocktail brings the idea of color, flavor and the different elements blended together for a tasteful experience. I wanted to visually express that with colors and movement. The thread bending, crossing and extending around and over his body at times expresses the turmoil in which different men find themselves. Other times, it represents the way men spin the web of their individuality.”

Check out the full series here.

(Captured with a 25-105mm f/4 lens.)

“What I do know is that society categorizes men as the dominant male, and I am against thinking that men are dominant. There is no dominant gender for me, just equal beings to whom different tasks are attributed. Let’s consider for example the prototype of the family: Men are the head of the family. I consider that normal, but that doesn’t mean that our word is holy. What I mean is that society has made men an instrument of authority, that must behave in a certain way, in order to meet the requirements of the needs of the system.” —Glenn, 23

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