One On One with Royce Soble
This month I have chosen to speak to my dear old friend Royce Soble. Chances are, if you have been to a hot LGBTQ dance party, a march for marginalized humans, or any hip art show, you’ve seen them. They are a part of our city’s LGBTQ history, with Emory University even archiving their photos for over the past 30 years. Read the full interview online at thegavoice.com.
Listen, before we get started, I’ve noticed recently that your pronoun preferences are they/them. Are you cool with going by Alli as your chosen name? I’ve seen recently you are using Royce a little more these days.
I would prefer going by my middle name, Royce. I’m connecting a bit more with it these days as it represents where I currently am with my nonbinary gender expression.
Amazing. Royce it is.
Thanks Mamma. How are things with you these days? I notice that your articles are steering clear of politics lately.
I couldn’t do it anymore. After the past four years, I had to take a breather. The world is already a hot mess without me reminding everyone how fucked up it is in my articles. I decided I wanted to focus on the positive side of life and all the great people in the world that help make our city so great. It’s really modeled after my favorite magazine of all time: Andy Warhol’s “Interview.”
OMG it’s my all-time fave as well. I started collecting them in 1988. My first ones I saved were with Parker Posey, Pee Wee Herman and Robert De Niro. I just remember being so inspired by them. The photographs were so cutting edge, so queer and a bit sexual. I also loved “Details” magazine as well. Go figure.
How old were you when you first put a camera up to your eye?
The first camera that was given to me was this Kodak Disc camera for my 10th birthday.
OMG I love it that you still have it! I swear to god, I can smell it from here. That delicious, plastic, ’80s toxicity.
I still love it to this day. I immediately started taking pictures of everything. I would take it to elementary school. I still have the albums from the years of 1984–1990. 1992 was when I really started to document my LGBTQ community. I had just started at Georgia State and had just made some of my first queer friends down at the quad. I was fresh out of the closet, but I was shy about it and was immediately fascinated by my new friend’s confidence and determination to live life so freely. I think I unconsciously started taking pictures of them, which gave me the courage to literally come out behind the camera and live my life authentically as well.
“It’s always photography. It is the fire that burns for me. I am so grateful to have that thing inside of me that drives me. There are a lot of people in the world that don’t have that passion that feeds them and taking photographs is mine. I am so lucky to have that.”
What are you trying to communicate with your photographs that you can’t say verbally? I’m really just trying to capture humanity in its natural setting. I love it when I get to see people’s intimate moments when they think no one is watching. It is very voyeuristic. Believe it or not, I can be shy, and I think the camera has allowed me to be more social. It does work as a barrier between myself and people, especially when my intention is to document a party or a protest. I can be up in the thick of it, but once I put my eye on that lens I am in my own little bubble. I can be outgoing and very friendly, but I like to come and go as I please. I don’t want to show up to a party with a bunch of people. Most of the time I arrive alone so I can escape when I’m ready.
I have been primarily focused on your photography, but you are also a mixed media and abstract painter as well. If you had to choose only one medium for the rest of your life, what would it be?
It’s always photography. It is the fire that burns for me. I am so grateful to have that thing inside of me that drives me. There are a lot of people in the world that don’t have that passion that feeds them and taking photographs is mine. I am so lucky to have that.
Well, I love you, Royce. You are one of the kindest humans I know. Thanks for hanging with me today darlin’ … Oops, I know that’s not very gender-neutral, is it? Sorry.
Honey, I’ll always be your darlin’ no matter where I fall on the gender spectrum.