About the Artist

B. Proud. It's not a slogan. It's the name that's on her birth certificate, and Barbara Proud says that it's a name she has to live up to. 

As both a commercial and fine art photographer, B. Proud has exhibited her work in solo and group shows around the globe. In addition to having photographed President Barack Obama and Lady Gaga on the same day, Barbara maintains an impressive list of clients. She was an Adjunct Professor of Photography in higher education for 26 years, primarily at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

B. Proud’s current work is a series of socially conscious documentary projects focused on the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities.  Transcending Love focuses on transgender and gender non-conforming couples across the country in attempt to open hearts and minds to a community deserving of understanding, respect, and basic human rights. B. Proud is currently working towards representing the greatest amount of ethnic, geographic, socio-economic and age diversity in this project in order to show a country that is increasingly becoming divided that transgender and gender non-conforming couples are everyone’s neighbor. The traveling exhibition is available for rental.

B. Proud’s previous project, First Comes Love, is a traveling exhibition of photographs, stories and video of couples in long-term relationships. When the mainstream publishers refused to take on the project, Barbara forged ahead and self-published the coffee table book First Comes Love: Portraits of Enduring LGBTQ Relationships, with a foreword by icon Edie Windsor.  A compilation of stunning black & white portraits and stories of 65 couples, the book has received two gold medal awards. “First Comes Love” has been exhibited in New York City, Philadelphia, Delaware, Washington state, Washington, DC, Seattle, Minneapolis, Florida, Berlin, Germany and Athens, Greece. Her short film, “A Circle of Diamonds,” produced with Philadelphia-based artists Michael Biello and Dan Martin, about Edie Windsor’s diamond engagement pin, has been included in over 20 film festivals worldwide. 

B. Proud’s projects have received grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, the B.W. Bastian Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, the University of the Arts, and the Delaware State Arts Council. Her work is included in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Harn Museum of Art (FL), the Delaware Art Museum, the Biggs Museum of American Art, Eastman Kodak, Haverford College, the Weeks Gallery (Jamestown, NY), the Forman Arts Initiative, and prominent private collections.

B. Proud lives in Wilmington, DE with her wife, Allison, and two dogs, Cosette and Rue.

B. Proud’s commercial work can be seen at www.bproudphoto.com and previous documentary project at www.firstcomeslove.org.