The Modern Lesbian @ Contact, Manchester, Until 20 Apr

While there’s a lot of laughter in the faces of the ‘modern lesbians’ of Rachel Adams' new exhibition The Modern Lesbian at Contact, the overarching story is one of gay women succeeding despite setbacks and prejudice. The chuckling face of Claud Cunningham, Black Angel clubnight DJ and promoter, contrasts sadly with her bio description, which details some of the difficulties she’s faced in trying to introduce contemporary black music to the Manchester gay scene.

Adams displays a talent for capturing the personality of her subjects through the use of different photographic styles. While Cunningham is shown in old-fashioned sepia, Jayne Compton – of Switchflicker Records and Club Brenda – is shrouded in darkness with a background of blurred 90s light.

Women such as Catherine Meads, Reader in Health Technology Assessment at Brunel University, and Caroline Hutton – both older women – are captured outside, and Adams uses the natural light to great effect, adding a filter to Hutton’s portrait that gives it the kind of nostalgic look Instagram(ateurs) try so hard to achieve. The filter is fitting for Hutton, who – her bio reveals – helped build the ‘largest physical archive of UK feminist music in the UK,’ now archived in Birmingham Central Library.

Displayed like large polaroids, the portrait photographs are impressive in their aesthetic variety. Rosie Garland (stage name Rosie Lugosi), a local performance artist, screams out of her photograph in colours so distinct her skin looks like a realist painting. Women are shown driving, working at their desks in their offices, and generally just ‘being'. There are trans-activists, librarians, ‘gender terrorists’ and a dominatrix. The modern lesbian still seems to be overrepresented in the social justice sectors, but an exhibition like this can only be an inspiration for other lesbian and bisexual women. See what is possible. [Ana Hine]