During his photo project Sonnenstraße, during which Frank Gaudlitz (*1958 in Vetschau) followed the tracks of Alexander von Humboldt over the Andes in 2010, he time and again encountered transsexuals—strong, proud women who live in male bodies. Marginalized by society, exposed to discrimination and physical violence on a daily basis, it requires the courage of the Amazons to publically admit to their choice of gender identity. Between 2013 and 2015, Gaudlitz lived among them for several months. In his portraits he consistently succeeds in capturing the fragility and vulnerability that slumbers even underneath thickly applied makeup. Highly stylized, almost painterly still life arrangements support the melancholy of this pictorial narrative and come across as metaphors of beauty and impermanence, of paradise and torture. After having been presented in numerous exhibitions, the images are now being published in this sophisticated volume of photographs.  Exhibition: Galerie Haus Schlangeneck, Euskirchen, 24.4.–21.5.2016