https://mymodernmet.com/alreadymade-female-commercial-photographers/
“Tired of the marginalization of female photographers in the commercial world, Jill Greenberg decided to take matters into her own hands. The successful photographer, whose work went viral due to her set of crying toddler photos, has started the directory Alreadymade. The site serves to take away any excuses for clients who feel as though they can’t find talented female photographers for high-end commercial photo shoots by giving these talented women a platform.
Although women are responsible for 85% of consumer purchases, female photographers are passed over for the majority of entertainment shoots and advertising campaigns. This means that male photographers are shaping the way we see and perceive the world the majority of the time (up to 90%)….”
Commentary
It is great to see that Jill Greenberg has added her reputation and energy to the fight for equal female participation and representation in the creative media with her Alreadymade. initiative but sad to see that, despite a long history of great photography by female photographers, the numbers continue to be so against that equality.
Some influential, inspirational female photographers in my past
While writing this article, I began compiling from memory a list of photographers whose work has been crucial in shaping my own way of seeing since I first picked up a camera, and that list just grew and grew.
Growing up in an isolated little town in the uttermost west, I did not have access to other photographers or to museums or galleries and certainly never saw exhibitions of photography anywhere back then, but I could and did order books from lending libraries in other towns across the state via the state library system and occasionally managed to buy photography magazines, so my access to other people’s work was limited.
As I added names from memory, this list just grew and grew and it is just the tip of the iceberg.
Further information about these photographers and links to their websites and other sources are available at Wikipedia’s List of women photographers.
- Annie Leibovitz
- Berenice Abbott
- Bettina Rheims
- Cindy Palmano
- Deborah Turbeville
- Diane Arbus
- Doris Ulmann
- Dorothea Lange
- Edith Tudor-Hart
- Ellen von Unwerth
- Fay Godwin
- Florence Henri
- Gertrude Käsebier
- Graciela Iturbide
- Helen Levitt
- Hilla Becher
- Jane Bown
- Jill Furmanovsky
- Jo Spence
- Joyce Tenneson
- Julia Margaret Cameron
- June Brown aka Alice Springs
- Laura Gilpin
- Lauren Greenfield
- Lee Miller
- Lisette Model
- Lotte Jacobi
- Lucia Moholy
- Margaret Bourke-White
- Markéta Luskačová
- Martine Franck
- Mary Ellen Mark
- Nan Goldin
- Peggy Sirota
- Pennie Smith
- Sally Mann
- Sarah Moon
- Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen
- Susan Meiselas
- Sylvia Plachy
- Tessa Traeger
- Tina Modotti
- Vivian Maier
- Yevonde Middleton
Links
- Advancing Diversity – “The Advancing Diversity Honors, held annually at CES, is the media, marketing, and advertising community’s premiere event to recognize and honor best practices and solutions for advancing diversity and inclusion.”
- Advancing Women Artists Foundation – “Myriad paintings and sculptures by ground-breaking women artists have been overlooked for centuries and many works are currently in need of restoration…. Recognize and support art history’s ‘invisible women’. They were artists against all odds, and their legacy is yours.”
- Alreadymade. – “100% locally sourced, artisanal female content. Please bookmark this site so you can consider hiring a woman a bit more often-for now we are hoping to get the ratio closer to 20% since it is under 10%.”
- Anonymous Was A Woman – “… an unrestricted grant of $25,000 awarded each year to ten women artists over the age of 40 and at a critical junction in their career.”
- Artslant – Jill Greenberg
- CNN Style – The female photographers who vanished from museums
- Daniela Federici – New York City-based Australian creative, director and fashion photographer.
- FotoDocument – The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award – “The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award facilitated by FotoDocument and supported by Olympus, is granted annually to a professional woman photographer towards the initiation or completion of a compelling and cohesive documentary photo essay which addresses an important social, environmental, economic or cultural issue, whether local or global. The work should, in part, showcase positive solutions to any issues it raises in order to contribute to constructive photojournalism, in line with the aims of FotoDocument and the wishes of Marilyn Stafford.”
- Free the Bid – “Giving a voice to women filmmakers in advertising film and TV.”
- Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media – “If she can see it, she can be it”
- Jenny van Sommers – London-based Australian still-life photographer working in advertising and magazine editorial.
- Jill Greenberg – website
- Marilyn Stafford – website
- My Modern Met – Interview: Online Directory of Female Photographers Challenges Gender Bias
- Open Culture – A Space of Their Own, a New Online Database, Will Feature Works by 600+ Overlooked Female Artists from the 15th-19th Centuries
- The Guardian – The fashion photography of Marilyn Stafford – in pictures – “As a freelance photojournalist based in Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, Stafford covered fashion assignments from the established haute couture houses of the 50s to the birth of prêt-à-porter, moving to London in the 60s – where as one of a small number of female photographers she helped to pave the way for future women working on Fleet Street.”
- Wikipedia – Jill Greenberg
- Wikipedia – List of women photographers
- Wikipedia – Women photographers
- Women Photograph – “Women Photograph is an initiative that launched in 2017 to elevate the voices of women* visual journalists.”
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