This is a gorgeous book. There are many ways it speaks to me. First, it reminds me that as a youth of the 70s, I wasn't as alone then as I thought. There simply were not enough pictures, art, books of us. Jeb also shows the beauty of black and white photography as a strong way to show a face and a body. Hard to articulate what I hoped to say there. In addition to also giving me comfort as an aging butch, seeing these beautiful women made me glad to be one of their tribe. ( )

Audre Lorde states: "As we need to share our words for power, so also do we need to share the contours of our faces, and the visual shapes of our loving and of our lives. The splendid vitality captured within Eye to Eye makes this possible."

The women in these portraits were some of the first dykes I ever laid eyes on, and the book feels like a lost family album. -Alison Bechdel

In 1979, JEB (Joan E. Biren) self-published her first book, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians. Revolutionary at that time, JEB made photographs of lesbians from different ages and backgrounds in their everyday lives―working, playing, raising families, and striving to remake their worlds. The photographs were accompanied by testimonials from the women pictured in the book, as well as writings from icons including Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich and a foreword from Joan Nestle. Eye to Eye signaled a radical new way of seeing―moving lesbian lives from the margins to the center, and reversing a history of invisibility. More than just a book, it was an affirmation of the existence of lesbians that helped to propel a political movement. Reprinted for the first time in forty years and featuring new essays from photographer Lola Flash and former soccer player Lori Lindsey, Eye to Eye is a faithful reproduction of a work that continues to resonate in the queer community and beyond.