“They’re tightly embracing each other, hair blowing in the wind, almost merging with the clouds behind them, and as a viewer we really get to become part of this intimate celebration both of their freedom to embrace out in the open and to challenge stereotypical gender roles.”
What we have here, I believe, is a male gay couple, with one dressed as/identifying as a woman. In the bad old days they’d have been happy to celebrate their sexuality by presenting as two men, but in these new progressive times one pretends to be a woman.
So…not challenging gender norms at all, but reinforcing gender norms. They already have a freedom to embrace out in the open thanks to gay lib, but they’re rejecting all that by presenting that most stereotypical of photos, a happy couple embracing on the beach, as a subversive act against “gender roles”.
Against being gay, in fact. That’s what this is about. Back into the closet.
Regressive, not progressive. Welcome to the art world.
For more challenging of gender norms by art photographers, see my visit to the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery last month.
Mick Hartley 
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