In 1959, Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm arrived in Paris and settled in the red-light district near Place Blanche. Born in 1918, Strömholm had already developed a sharp, personal photographic style. Paris drew him in search of new stories, and the streets around Place Blanche delivered exactly that.
The neighborhood was lined with bars and cabarets and ran on nightlife. Among its residents were young transsexual women who worked as prostitutes. Many had been rejected by their families. They lived on the margins of a society that largely refused to accept them.
Strömholm didn’t photograph these women from a distance. He built real friendships with them over several years. That closeness shows in his images — quiet moments alone, laughter shared between friends, unguarded expressions caught in dim light.
His book, *Les Amies de Place Blanche*, collected this work. In it, he wrote about the women as friends, not subjects. Each photograph carried the weight of a specific life — not a type or a category, but a person with her own history.
The women Strömholm photographed faced daily hardship. Sex work in mid-century Paris was dangerous, and being openly transsexual brought added risk. Police harassment was common. Social services offered little help. Survival required constant negotiation.
Some of the women saved money hoping to afford gender-affirming surgery, which was then available only in a handful of places abroad. Casablanca was one destination they spoke of. For many, it remained a distant goal rather than a reality.
Strömholm’s camera captured joy alongside hardship. There are images of women getting ready, sharing meals, sitting in cafés, and simply existing. These are not dramatic scenes staged for effect — they are the textures of ordinary life.
His use of black-and-white film suited the world he was documenting. The high contrast and grain of his prints matched the rough edges of life near Place Blanche. Nothing was softened or prettified.
The portraits are striking in their directness. Women look straight into the lens without apology. Others are photographed unaware, caught in private moments. Both types of image carry the same sense of trust between photographer and subject.
Strömholm worked in this community from 1959 into the early 1960s, returning repeatedly. The resulting archive spans years of consistent, committed documentation rather than a single visit.
The photographs record a community that existed largely outside of public record. No official documents, news coverage, or government files tracked these women’s lives. Strömholm’s images remain among the only detailed evidence that this specific community existed as it did.
