Women Photograph

Women Photograph

The ‘Women Photograph’ initiative launched in early 2017 to elevate the voices of women and non-binary visual journalists. Its founder, Daniella Zalcman, got so frustrated being told by photo editors, ‘I would hire more women if I knew where to look,’ that she decided to make a list so that the next time the conversation happened she’d be able to say, ‘here, I made this for you.’ We contacted Daniella to look back at the initiative’s achievements over the first two years and its future plans. Photojournalism is a hugely male-dominated world and, although a large proportion of students are female, only a small proportion of photojournalists in the field are women. Daniella explains why this matters;

‘There is so much value in having a multitude of perspectives – a single view cannot do justice to the people who let you into their lives. If newspaper front pages are 85-90% shot by men, we are looking at the world through a predominantly male gaze. Conflict, politics, entertainment, sports are being represented through the way men see these issues. It is deeply dangerous.’ Women Photograph remains, first and foremost, a database that now includes over 900 independent women documentary photographers based in more than 100 countries around the world. The photographers cover breaking news, conflict, food, entertainment, sports - every aspect of documentary photography and photojournalism. The website showcases the work of its members and the private database forms an essential hiring resource, providing all the information an editor could possibly want. Any independent photographer with more than 5 years of professional experience can apply to join the database by reaching out to hello@womenphotograph.com. Women Photograph is spending 2019 particularly focused on expanding the database in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

‘Photo editors and photographers need to be mindful that if we want to tell the stories of diverse people around the world then we, as storytellers, need to be diverse or we are not going to understand, and we are not going to report with nuance.’ From its origins as a simple list, Women Photograph has expanded to include a grant programme, mentorship programme, annual workshop, travel fund, and a data collection team.

‘The best part is the huge community of people who are working really hard to support each other. It has been remarkable, astonishing, and wonderful to see just how supportive everyone has been.’

Women Photograph is run by a core team of just 4 staff who have a background in film and photography and a strong belief in the mission. There are also countless volunteers who help keep Women Photograph running - the 44 photo editors and photographers who have been part of the mentorship program, the (anonymous) photographers who make up the data collection team, Kerry Manders who runs the monthly interview series, all of the industry leaders who have participated as grant judges, portfolio reviewers, speakers, and advisers. Women Photograph is primarily funded through partnerships with corporations and foundations (www. womenphotograph.com/about) and, roughly once a year, they run a print auction or a print sale to help cover the operating costs and secondary programming. Anyone who would like to donate can do so via the website: www.womenphotograph. com/donate. Women Photograph runs two annual grant programmes to support a range of documentary projects, and since 2017 they have distributed over $80,000. You can read more about their projects, and connect with their work, through the Women Photograph website. The 2018 Women Photograph & Getty Images Grant was awarded to Nadia Shira Cohen. Her project, ‘Yo No Di a Luz’, looks at the complete prohibition of abortion in El Salvador, and the many ways in which this affects the country’s women. Etinosa Yvonne Osayimwen was one of the recipients of the Women Photograph & Nikon Grants in 2018. ‘It’s All in My Head’ is an ongoing project that explores the coping mechanisms of survivors of terrorism and violent conflict, using layered portraits of the survivors and the things that they do to help them move forward. Supporting emerging photographers is vital and Women Photograph runs an annual mentorship programme that pairs 22 industry leaders (11 photographers and 11 photo editors) with 22 early-career photojournalists, over the course of a year. Mentors have included editors from NPR, National Geographic, and TIME, and photographers who are the recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, World Press Photo awards, and the founders of organizations like Foto Feminas and MFON. Women Photograph also take part in New York’s annual outdoor photo festival, Photoville. The team organise a programme of panel discussions and breakout sessions which give participants an opportunity to build skills in a range of photography-related disciplines. Women Photograph keeps track of several data sets to analyse the ways in which women photographers are hired, and published, in the photojournalism industry. They make this information available for academic and journalistic use. The Data Collection Team publishes statistics within the industry covering lead photo bylines by gender, week in pictures gender breakdown, and year in pictures gender breakdown. It has been an amazing first couple of years for Women Photograph and we look forward to following what happens next.