1st place
gold star award
Bienyl Huelgas
philippines 
Photo © Bienyl Huelgas
title
T(ea) is for Transgender
Teabags, fragile and often discarded, reflect how trans lives are frequently treated by society: overlooked, misunderstood, or cast aside. Yet through this printing process, our presence becomes visible and tangible. The choice of material carries layered meaning. In Black ballroom and LGBT culture, “tea” originally meant “truth,” and that truth signifies someone's transgender identity. These portraits show our truth, our presence, our identities.
This series is my tribute to all the beautiful transgender women I have met during parties and raves. Trans lives are part of culture and history. Even in the most delicate forms, we persist. We endure.
Immersed in Manila’s queer nightlife, she uses film to capture intimate, electric glimpses of the city’s vibrant rave scene, juxtaposed with idyllic moments from rural Cavite. She also wields her lens as a way to navigate her own identity as a trans person by chronicling trans experiences through portraiture and fine art photography.
Her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, and published in Tiga Mata, a Southeast Asian photography zine, as well as in notable contemporary fine art photography publications such as F-Stop Magazine, Lenscratch, and The Photo Review.
Currently, she is exploring alternative processes such as cyanotype printing and hand-sewing, gilding, and inscribing photographs as a way to physically intervene with the image, pushing the boundaries of the photographic form and deepening her relationship with the materiality of the medium.
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entry description
In my series T(ea) is for Transgender, I created cyanotype portraits of fellow trans women by contact printing transparency film negatives derived from 35mm film photographs onto teabags.Teabags, fragile and often discarded, reflect how trans lives are frequently treated by society: overlooked, misunderstood, or cast aside. Yet through this printing process, our presence becomes visible and tangible. The choice of material carries layered meaning. In Black ballroom and LGBT culture, “tea” originally meant “truth,” and that truth signifies someone's transgender identity. These portraits show our truth, our presence, our identities.
This series is my tribute to all the beautiful transgender women I have met during parties and raves. Trans lives are part of culture and history. Even in the most delicate forms, we persist. We endure.
about the photographer
Bienyl Huelgas (b. 1998) is an emerging trans photographer based in Cavite, Philippines, whose work centers on analog photography as a medium for storytelling and preservation. Her journey with photography began on a birthday trip to the mountains of Sagada in Northern Luzon, accompanied by a secondhand digicam. Since then, she has transitioned to film photography, experimenting with a range of point-and-shoots, rangefinders, SLRs, and TLRs to capture a wide array of subjects through her lens.Immersed in Manila’s queer nightlife, she uses film to capture intimate, electric glimpses of the city’s vibrant rave scene, juxtaposed with idyllic moments from rural Cavite. She also wields her lens as a way to navigate her own identity as a trans person by chronicling trans experiences through portraiture and fine art photography.
Her work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, and published in Tiga Mata, a Southeast Asian photography zine, as well as in notable contemporary fine art photography publications such as F-Stop Magazine, Lenscratch, and The Photo Review.
Currently, she is exploring alternative processes such as cyanotype printing and hand-sewing, gilding, and inscribing photographs as a way to physically intervene with the image, pushing the boundaries of the photographic form and deepening her relationship with the materiality of the medium.
back to gallery
