Jada Solèy Rodriguez

Photographs
CV
About

The Girl I’ve Been Looking For | The Girl I’ve Been Looking For is a photography series that delves into the power, intimacy, and complexity of Black trans women’s and femmes’ lives. This work reflects on their girlhood and serves as a parallel exploration of my own personal journey. Through this series, I aim to illuminate the often-unspoken tensions we navigate in family relationships, romantic connections, self-love, spirituality, cultural identity, and vulnerability.

The title, The Girl I’ve Been Looking For, is a multifaceted metaphor for the experiences of trans women: constantly being “found” and “unfound” in different contexts. It speaks to the search for identity, the experience of being loved and fetishized, and the challenges of misrepresentation, whether in media or society at large. It also celebrates the moments of recognition—in ourselves, in community, or in the trans woman we pass on the street—while acknowledging the persistent struggle against dehumanization and politicization.

This series is a reimagining of how trans women and femmes are visually represented, offering an alternative to the existing narratives. It is a reclamation of narrative and an ode to tenderness, authenticity, and agency— a letter to who we are and who we’re becoming.