When photographer Meg Allen began taking portraits of her friends in the San Francisco area last year, she had no idea it would soon become a project close to her heart. Allen describes herself as a "butch-ish queer" chick — she has been all of her life. "I tried to do the feminine thing there and there, but it always felt so false." Her photo-based documentary BUTCH attempts to explore the butch identity and aesthetic through a series of personal portraits.

Allen says she was initially inspired by the photography of Catherine Opie, Honey Lee Cottrell, Tee Corine, and Chloe Sherman in Jill Posener's book Nothing But the Girl — but wanted to give an updated look at feminine masculinity. "I lived in San Francisco at the time, and the Mission was Latino and dyke city ... yet the only thing I saw published or visual in a major way was this book and a handful of others."