Fast Forward – Women in Photography

44 thoughts on “Fast Forward – Women in Photography”

• I was sorry to miss the debate – had a ticket but then couldn’t go.
  Interesting that your title is Women in Photography and yet you ask for comments about both male and female support systems. Is this some qualitative research maybe?
  My metaphorical room is actually my bed in the early morning before I get up to meet the day. I plan so many different projects and ways of getting to grips with them. It all seems quite simple then. My challenge is to find a pathway between my brain and my reality. Brief notes in the pad in my bedside cabinet help – also to sit at the computer asap and make notes (avoiding my obsessional need to have correct spelling and punctuation!). the other metaphorical space is when I’m walking the dogs.
  I can’t do without a physical room of my own though. A spot on the dining table used to be fine but age seems to have brought on more of a need for my own space. I’ve been pleased as well that during my studies with OCA I’ve become part of a small group of people who offer support/advice/commiseration through getting together, by email or, recently, Google hangout.
  PS Maybe you need a fanoply of fanfares Sharon!

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  • Hi Catherine – I always make a little corner for myself! Perhaps that will have to do for the time being. Walking is a great metaphorical space – swimming too – and long distance driving; anywhere you can just allow yourself to go with the thought threads. That’s probably why I find it so hard to get out of bed in the morning 😉
    I wasn’t going to use you all as guinea pigs but it would be interesting to see how both genders see these issues and also to compare support systems. I think it would be amazing if someone did some in depth research into this at the top levels.
    But a support structure at all levels is imperative. I’m interested in it at all stages.
    Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks.

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• Do you think photography is a special case or simply a reflection of the problems women face in almost any career beyond supporting a man?

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  • I think it probably is across the board, Peter. Hence the need for people like Sheryl Sandberg to write motivational books on the matter. There does though seem to be inequality in photography, which is my field, so I find it particularly problematic. It seems that women find it easy to get to a certain level of standing (awards, shows etc) early in their careers but seeing that through to the long term is more difficult and they seem to drop off the radar a bit.

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  • I think you are right Peter, women do face much bigger hurdles in getting to the top of their ladder whatever the discipline, however some do get there such as artist Georgia O Keefe, and more rarely still because her husband was actively marketing and supporting her so she could focus on her work. So, fundamentally I believe many women have so many distracting responsibilities such as children, their jobs and a home, which makes it far more difficult for them to be single focused than it is for their counterparts. I was successful in my career but it was to the detriment of my marriage and I also had no children – I most definately wouldnt have achieved as much as I did at work, if I had been lucky enough to have had a family.

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• I wanted to go to this event and was sorry not to be able to, so I am therefore very interested in the Anna Fox talk on the 7th May.
  To answer the question about support systems I would say that there is maybe a difference between the ‘student’ and the ‘artist’. As an OCA student one is left to develop a student cohort structure, to find like (and some un-like, which might be just as important) fellow students who will never be at the same place in the course as oneself but that one could discuss issues relating to the course etc. But also to develop a support system of other artists and practitioners with whom one can express ideas and discuss – it has been suggested before about mentors which might exist outside the confines of study, and I suspect many students will inevitably find those resources who may or may not be fellow students, I certainly have.
  An understanding and supportive partner, which I have, makes an enormous difference as does that ‘space’ which for me is both physical and temporal. Going to the physical space seems to ‘tune’ me to work, but I also find other times – train journeys, walking etc where I ‘zone’ into a space, and that can be tricky if I am with someone :).

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  • I think if you can crack it as a student you have a lot more chance in doing it as a fully fledged artist. Actually this is such an important thing to learn and those that do it at student level benefit so much in their studies and beyond. OCA has a very strong support system (tutor mentoring, study visits, blogs, forums etc) which can be learnt from and carried on well after graduation. Networking and gathering support is a life skill which I consider to be a basic requirement of doing what we do.
    See you on the 7th!

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• John, you are so right. Train journeys are amazing for inspiration. Or at least they used to be for me. I think I should definitely start not trying to get anything ‘done’ on the train and start starring out of the window again like I used to!
  Thank you for this post, Sharon, highlighting the continued inequality at the top of our field. I have looked into this in relation to landscape practice and the (at least historic) explanations are traceable. (There is a great essay by John Stathatos which quantifies some of the statistics, originally published in ‘Shifting Horizons’, edited by Liz Wells, but available here: http://www.stathatos.net/pages/conditional_presence.html )
  To pick up on Peter’s I think in fact that women do have it a lot better in the art world than their academic contemporaries in other fields. In the sciences for instance, you don’t get your PhD WELL before your 30s in the sciences then your career progression is going to be v. tough. Career route are a lot less prescribed in our (often messed up!) world, but this does leave a little more room to incorporate the other pressures of life, and have a better chance of ‘making it’ post breeding… But it would indeed be interesting to see how women photographers fare compared to say, sculptors. What is it about photography that makes it distinctly phallus-heavy?
  Anyway – thank you, and for the reminder about Anna Fox’s talk on the 7th http://www.weareoca.com/photography/anna-fox-artist-talk-for-oca-students/

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  • Thanks for the link on landscape Jesse, I was thinking about this recently, about the gendered view we have of the sublime, which isn’t completely off-piste as far as this blog-post?

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  • I think it is really, really hard to ‘make it’ in our industry, for everyone but specifically for women. PhD or not there is no formula for success which makes it daunting and leaves you open to doubt and self loathing (!) when you don’t seem to be making much progress. Then of course something comes along to cheer you up and stops you throwing the towel in completely. If this doesn’t happen before your 40’s are out I do wonder how much better it is going to get… To get something positive from all this I think the reality helps me get my priorities right. Helps me define what success means for me and what my values are. And helps us have the drive we need for those self-substantiated goals rather than what the industry defines as successful.

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• I have in a group which consists entirely of women, its for artistic support and criticism, its been so valuable over the years, they have got me through quite a number of crises with my studies …usually by laughing so much at some of my anecdotes!

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• An interesting post Sharon, thank you. I’m looking forward to the Anna Fox talk on the 7th and discussing the female role in art photography at the TV group. I’m fortunate indeed as the room of my own consists of a whole house! The support of the OCA students and tutors has got me this far and will hopefully continue as I struggle towards my degree. It is interesting that those who show the most interest in my work and progress (from outside the OCA) are female.

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• Thanks for this post Sharon. “The room of my own” is a desk in the corner of the dining room ( temporarily relocated lately in the kids’ bedroom). This is small, not intimate, but I feel nonetheless lucky to have this desk – it is already fulfilling. I wish I had more time, more space, I wish I was closer to the UK to be able to participate to study visits, and meet more people from the OCA. But I realize that despite the distance, I have wonderful relationships with my course-mates, tutors, support from them, but also from my friends and family.
  Everything could be improved, could be better suited to fulfill my dreams, but I feel already tremendously lucky about having taken this decision to let art and photography take a huge place in my life. I feel that this metaphorical mental room we are talking about, for most of us, is something that has always been there, but may be the door was closed. Now I put my energy in leaving the door always open, occupying it as well as I could, as much as I can – trying not to be too exigent and staying flexible.
  Being a women and a mom probably does not help, because we are more expected to behave in specific ways: when in France I was frowned upon when I decided to quit my job to raise my kids, and in the USA frowned upon when I decided to resume college studies with the OCA, so… it would be easy to think that it’s too late, that I’ll never have the time I need, that I should focus on other important things (like finally cleaning the balcony or learning to cook properly!)… I am a level one student and the path is still long, but hey… the room is there, and thanks to you all, I feel that even if things are going slow, it’s worth keep going and creating…

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• Some interesting comments and I wonder if the results from the students will be slanted as the OCA students are more mature in years? Isn’t the view that women monopolise the home life whilst the man predominantly works also slightly dated?
  Perhaps that’s just in our relationship where my wife has a much more important work role than mine, and as more mature students, our roles in our children’s lives become less, yet significantly increase with elderly parents.
  My personal experience is that distance learning is very hard for those with family commitments and working. Early starts, late finishes by the time the family or home duties have completed sometimes means it’s a struggle to find time or the inclination to spend more time in front of the computer.
  I’m lucky in that we needed a study at home, so I have a room that both of us can shut ourselves in to work without distraction. On top of that, I find that late evenings and early mornings listening to photography podcasts on headphones work well for me and introduce me to new artists and thoughts.

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  • Hi Dave, regarding the monopolisation of domestic life – speaking anecdotally of course – I think that things haven’t moved on in quite the leaps and bounds that we are led to believe. With the majority of my peers at the breeding stages of their lives, the careers of the fathers tends to be superseding those of the mothers, in almost every instance I can think of.

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• Oh and as for women in photography, I was reading/listening just the other day about Karen Beard .. ‘a professional photographer with close to 20 years experience executing commercial photo shoots and running related businesses. After a recent stint art directing shoots, Karen became determined to find a better way to serve the needs of all – photographers, art directors, marketers, clients and women alike – Karen created SheStock to deliver highly-curated, highly searchable stock and assignments with the artist’s vision as the essential starting point.’

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  • I had a look at the Shestock website Dave – http://www.shestockimages.com and it’s well laid-out. I may be wrong but it looks to me as if it’s aimed at the commercial side and stock images for advertising, including advertising that will appeal to women.

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• I’m a bit lost here. Men also have the same distractions such as family life, food shopping etc (otherwise we would starve). Lise Safarti, Renike Dykstra, Bettina Rheims my favourite photographers and doing much better than me. I think ‘women’ here should be replaced by ‘parent’ its this choice that challenges practitioners to make time for their art as you have to put others first. its certainly not about ‘men’ or ‘women’ it is after all the 21st century. You can chose to work or not work. To do the large part of the parenting or rely on ‘the other half’ (if you have one – which I don’t). If I can bring two children up on my own yet still be a published photographer I think anyone can. You have a choice. What stops people from getting on in their art is their own sense of victimhood.

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  • I would like to reiterate here that the conference was about women not parents. The fact is that, even in our contemporary and ‘progressive’ society, a lot of women are still holding the babies. That may or may not hold them back. It is definitely an issue that many women haven’t fully resolved so it certainly plays a big role in the discussion. However the success of women photographers is more complicated than how many children we have and how they are looked after. It is about what it takes to push through that barrier – generally after 20 years of working – that tends to be make or break time. The time when major curators, publishers, collectors (support systems) need to get involved. Unfortunately for many women, parents or not, this is the time when they fall behind men. This is partly what the conference was addressing and this is what we need to look further into in order not to simplify our answers to childcare.

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• Quote “Behind every great person is a whole team of people willing them to succeed and putting structures in place to enable that success. ”
  I am a man. And a man who claims to be successful in his work and career.
  But I wonder wether this quote is true. In my life I had a rather opposite experience. The only constant where people telling me that I am not able to do certain things. Starting with my mother, teachers at school, colleagues at work.
  Therefore I would like to extend the list of potential reasons with two more points:
  1. Women don’t have the will to fight for success and woman call much to often for external support.
  2. Maybe (you won’t like this statement) It might be that women tends to create art which is lesser interesting. I mean this in general. If you look at the list of best sellers at Amazon or a list of the best movies. 9 of 10 of the highest rated artists are male.

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  • I find this kind of considerations very insulting Andrey. It is not constructive criticism that you are doing. I understand Garry comments about talking in term of “parents” rather than “women”, it makes sense. But talking like you do about women in general not having will to fight for success and doing less interesting work (quoting amazon as the source of your reflection), that seems a bit weak to me as an argument to answer this post.

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  • ‘If you look at the list of best sellers at Amazon or a list of the best movies. 9 of 10 of the highest rated artists are male.’
    I am not sure how to recognise ‘the best movies’ Andrey but I did take a look at the top ten best sellers on Amazon and 8 out the top 10 were written by women. I think this suggests you are not basing your opinions on evidence.

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    • Linda Nochlin -who wrote “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists” was apparently always amused, and a little saddened, by those who then decided to try and find Great Women Artists. Of course her point was that the measure by which all artists are judged are those that have been constructed by people without wombs, so why would we expect to find any artist with that apparent impediment meeting those gendered criteria? Most judges of competitions are of a similar physical disposition, curators, gallery owners, art buyers, film directors, actors with speaking roles, studio owners etc etc etc. That Amazon – now there’s a curious noun in this conversation – has women writers at the top of their best seller list currently is interesting but not proof that their art is in anyway greater or lesser, as defined by a man.
      So Andrey, responding to either of your points specifically continues to pander to those ideas perhaps first fostered by Pythagorus in 6th century b.c. ‘ There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle, which created chaos, darkness, and women’ (thanks to the guerrilla girls for the reference) and it seems in 8 thousand years we haven’t yet moved the conversation on a great deal. I suggest Nochlin’s article here: http://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/512/files/2012/01/whynogreatwomenartists_4.pdf

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  • Isn’t the best selling book in recent time 50 shades of grey? Or for children’s literature, JK Rowling?

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• There are a few things I take issue with in the above
  – not all women have children
  – if those over 40 have no hope of ‘making it’ then what is this saying to those of us who are female and over 40, is there no point in us studying, maybe we should disappear into the wallpaper and make like we’re invisible
  – Although its probably a mistake to overgeneralise I think women do tend to be more collaborative in nature; maybe Andrey is misinterpreting that? Not all of us do call for external support, but sometimes we try and offer it to others in whatever way we can; maybe this holds us back? I think Andrey does have a point maybe, if we were more cut-throat in nature maybe we’d have more success.

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• That phrase, “Women don’t have the will to fight for success” stung me. Playing devil’s advocate though it did start me off wondering somewhat and trying to recall whether we women do tend to downplay themselves often whilst I’ve noticed that men can tend to strike a more positive stance and look for solutions more quickly. I’d have to look at discussion threads though to get a sense of it and I’m quite ready to be shot down in flames for what I’m writing!

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  • I think this is actually very interesting – I read a research paper once which was conducted in America where men and women were both asked the same questions publicly about their work capabilities. The women where more self-deprecating than the men. But when the same study was carried out privately the women displayed as much confidence in their abilities as the men did. So what was gleaned from the paper was that women are more concerned with presenting themselves in a humble way than men are but their inner confidence remains the same. If this is a true gender reflection then the old question remains – should women try to be more like men in how they present themselves in the work place in order to progress in their careers? If women are not going to change in order to get themselves noticed at work what else needs to give? Society? The industries?

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    • I’m not entirely convinced by the results of the research Sharon because there’s an obvious gap between the privately confident woman artist and the group/public woman artist. I think there must be something going on in that gap in between them – some form of negative self-talk. There needs to be more research!

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• I think the point to the research is that people tend to react in the way that they perceive society expects at least in public.
  In my opinion it would be disastrous if women were to be more like men (vide M.Thatcher); it would be so much better the other way round! However I do think that women need to be more (apparently) confident when promoting their work and work potential, though in metropolitan areas I am pleased to see an increasing number of women’s collectives and ls an increasing number of women in directorial/curatorial positions in galleries…by no means enough yet but with luck the numbers will continue to increase.

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• ‘..but with luck the numbers will continue to increase.” That we should need to rely on luck eh?

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  • I certainly take your point.
    I suppose that what I was really thinking is that it will be to our good fortune (luck?) if the numbers increase.

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• And this might be an indictment of the profession as a whole, Duckrabbit reporting on the World Press Photo Awards. http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2014/04/man-up-for-the-world-press-photo-awards/ 14% of the entrants female and 1 on the panel (and all the panel white!).
  Peter, what sort of luck are we hoping for here 😉

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  • John , one thing I’ve wanted to know is whether Awards have anonymous entrants or not as that would eliminate at least one form of bias.

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    • I really can’t say Catherine, but having read Bloomberg and Chanarin on the process of Photo competitions I wonder why any would want to bother. Apart from the odds being so low, the time an image has in front of a judge is measured in seconds! I’ve seen it in operation at a national level and have avoided the whole process since.

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      • Apologies to Adam Broomberg for misspelling his name, but here’s a link to that piece http://www.broombergchanarin.com/unconcerned-but-not-indifferent-text/

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• I’m interested in the idea of women’s collectives as one way to build confidence. One thing I have noticed is that some of these collectives don’t seem to have a very long life. It’s as if the women get together for one particular purpose and then go their separate ways.

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• Getting back to the sex of a photographer vs success, one of the points being missed is (in my experience and in my opinion) that there is a certain stigma associated with a man with a camera, possibly fuelled by stories in the media, social networking and its now creeping into public opinion that a man with a camera needs to be viewed with suspicion.
  Shooting in the street is difficult if children are around, shooting in a local park is almost a forbidden activity. Yet women don’t seem to be accused in the same way. Frequently you’ll read, even on photography forums, comments such as ‘if you took a photo of my child you’ll soon wish you haven’t’. Try having a reasonable discussion on Mumsnet, challenging this view and you’ll be called a paedo within only a few posts.
  A straw poll in the office extracted comments such as why would you want to take images of children, what do you do with them and a complete understanding of why you’d want images of random strangers that were not relations, yet at the same time berating schools for blocking school play photography.
  Is this putting off male photographers? If we look at the evidence from the OCA (Miranda Gavin – What is documentary – https://vimeo.com/29752787), she states ‘more and more women are going into photography classes’ followed by one teaching friend saying the classes were 80% women. This leads to shifts in documentary photography driven by the ease and availability of equipment, women picking different topics or approaches to topics previously covered.
  As I covered in my learning log post on the video above, as an exercise I wrote down the women photographers I could instantly think of: Diane Arbus, Eve Arnold, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Anne Geddes, Annie Leibovitz, Sally Mann, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, Vivian Mayer and yet there’s an argument there are no top women photographers? (about the same number of men I could list int he same sort of timeframe).
  So is the tide turning? Is it now more socially acceptable for women to photograph than men? Is this leading to a higher uptake on photographer course by female students Will this lead to a perception of more top women photographers?
  Not everyone makes it of course. There’s several photographers shooting local studio work, or if we’re talking as a whole, the majority of photos are now taken on a mobile phone and posted on social networking. It would be interesting to see the gender breakdown of images on these and other hosting sites.

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• It has often been said that the photograph is neutral; it certainly has no sex although the French give it a feminine preposition. In the student lead OCA Paris visit, female outnumbered male attendees but not by very many!

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• Excellent post Sharon. Sorry I missed all the debate but lots of interesting references and thoughts here. I am looking forward to hearing Anna Fox this week. I have made some observations on the the issue of the recognition of (or lack of) women’s art/photography here:
  http://photo-graph.org/2013/11/27/photographer-stereotypes/

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• Interestingly, after briefly meeting Sharon yesterday, we headed to the Photographers Gallery to see the Deutche Borse exhibition.
  The members of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014 jury are:
  Kate Bush, Curator,
  Jitka Hanzlová, Artist,
  Thomas Seelig, Director/Curator, Fotomuseum Winterthur;
  Anne-Marie Beckmann, Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany.
  Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.
  So 3 women judges and one man fro a major prize.

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  • isn’t that 3 women and 2 men !??
    of the exhibitors 3 men and 1 woman
    at Prix Pictet, 9 men and 2 women
    … lets not blur the inequality because photography tends to be more generous to women than other major art forms

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• One of the things that concerns me most is that there are so many women in art education, both as students and tutors and in arts administration but the opportunities for them to exhibit seems still to be severely restricted despite the high standard of their work. The Old Boys Club still seems to be in full operation, it would seem that the answer to the Guerrilla Girls’ question, ” Do Women Have to be Naked to get into the Met. Museum?” is still “Yes!”

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• This may be of interest:-
  http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/audioslideshow/2014/may/23/women-cameras-battle-gaddafi-top-female-documentary-photographers-war?CMP=fb_gu

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• Lately I stumbled upon a small book of interviews with women artist entitled “How we do both: Art and Motherhood” which reminded me of this post. I found in it illuminating and liberating thoughts and I thought that it was well worth mentioning here.
  All the artists were asked:
  1- How do you logistically balance art making and motherhood?
  2- Does your art making require a room of one’s own?
  3- Did having children enhance your creativity?
  Some answered briefly, some in more detailed ways, others wrote short essays. As a student and a mom with kids not going to school full time, this book gave me some new perspectives, some ideas about how to manage things better with them.
  (Jigarjian, M. and Mestrich, Q. (2012). How we do both. 1st ed. New York: Secretary Press. [avalaible at http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-We-Do-Both-Motherhood/dp/0988321416/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408628317&sr=1-1&keywords=How+we+do+both%5D)

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