Momo Okabe is a young photographer from Japan who has two striking books to her credit, Dildo and Bible. Dildo is an extremely personal document that tracks her own evolving relationships with two lovers, Kaori and Yoko, both of whom were undergoing gender identity disorders during the time the photographs were taken. Only 55 copies were ever made of Dildo, by hand, and it is now nearly impossible to get ahold of. It’s very moving to see the expressions on the faces of Kaori and Yoko right before, during, and right after that surgery.

Bible, which is published by Session Press, is about Okabe’s everyday life in Tokyo, Miyagi and India that addresses “the alienation of the transgender community” in Japan as well as her own relationship with a man who “used to go crazy and commit crimes, but I didn’t think he was evil or bad inside.” Okabe’s work has an emotional immediacy that is similar to the work of Nan Goldin.

In a 2014 interview with Dazed, Okabe said of her first book, “I made Dildo because I truly loved my two boyfriends. I really wanted to cherish the time we spent together. I wanted to take photos just like everybody makes a family album. I wanted to preserve fun memories of dates with people I really love. So my work can be compared with a precious family album, just like everybody has at home.”

Okabe descrribes Bible thus:
 

Bible compiles all my recent works, including many unpublished photographs taken in Tokyo, Miyagi and India between 2010 and 2013. I took photos in that period without any real reason for doing so. However, last summer I met a new man and things changed dramatically. He used to go crazy and commit crimes, but I didn’t think he was evil or bad inside. Whenever I was with him, I felt tremendously sad but I could take a lot of beautiful photos. I felt that I could finally become free from my history. Bible is not a record of memories but a mental landscape that people can attain only after a long dark struggle in their past. It is an elegy for people who have experienced pain. When I finished compiling the work, I felt like I had been reborn. I felt I could finally become myself to the world appearing in front of me.

 
It goes without saying that these photographs are NSFW.

Here a series from Dildo:
 

 

 
More of Momo Okabe’s photography after the jump…