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    Framing the Shot: Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best
    Framing the Shot: Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best
    Framing the Shot: Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    Framing the Shot: Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best

    By Sophia Nunn

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    About this ebook

    Imagine shooting photos out of a helicopter with no doors or being dropped in a Zimbabwean jungle to shoot a story about rhino horn poachers. It's all part of the job for the talented women who've paved the way for future generations of photographers. 


    Their work appears in glossy publications, on national news sites, and

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNew Degree Press
    Release dateMay 6, 2021
    ISBN9781637302606
    Framing the Shot: Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best

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      Book preview

      Framing the Shot - Sophia Nunn

      Framing the Shot:

      Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best

      Sophia Nunn

      New Degree Press

      Copyright © 2021 Sophia Nunn

      All rights reserved.

      Framing the Shot:

      Developing Your Passion for Photography through the Eyes of the Women Who Know It Best

      ISBN 978-1-63676-816-8 Paperback

      978-1-63730-226-2 Kindle Ebook

      978-1-63730-260-6 Ebook

      To Dad. Thank you for being my most important teacher, closest friend, and number one motivator.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Part I

      An Introduction to Photography: Its History, Fields, and Representation

      Photography from 1839 to the Present

      Fields of Photography

      Why Diversity and Representation Matter

      Part II

      How to Follow Your Passion for Photography & Improve Your Skills as an Image-Maker

      Find Your Voice

      Chase Your Passion

      Ethical Journalism

      Get Comfortable with Discomfort

      Breaking Barriers of Racial Homogeneity

      Relationships, Emotions, And Failure

      Marketing & Social Media

      Advice for Future Photographers

      Acknowledgments

      Appendix

      Introduction

      Imagine shooting photos out of a helicopter with no doors, being dropped off in the middle of a Zimbabwean jungle to shoot a story about rhino horn poachers, only to find out that you were on your own. Envision challenging the very messages that you were assigned to capture after having completed the assignment. Sometimes you have to go to great lengths to get the shot. It’s all just part of the job for the talented women who’ve paved the way for future generations of photographers. Their work appears in glossy publications, on national news sites, and in your social media feed. Unless you slow down to read the photo credits, however, you’d never realize how few of the images you see every day were actually taken by women photographers.

      Of the eight largest world newspapers, between 8.3 percent to 43.3 percent of lead photo bylines were taken by women in 2020. This means that, of the stories told globally, almost all are told from a male (white, cis-gender, heterosexual, able-bodied and minded) perspective. Though this data applies more specifically to photojournalism, similar patterns are found throughout the entire photography industry. Women are largely underrepresented as photographers and have been throughout history.¹

      Thirteen women photographers graciously shared their career stories with me so that I could share them with you. Their work spans a cross-section of fields within the photography industry and their experiences are as diverse as the women, themselves.

      Below are a few of the takeaway messages from four of the women with whom I spoke.

      Ami Vitale, a Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic Magazine photographer, emphasized the importance of finding, using, and believing in your voice.

      Tara Pixley, a visual journalist, strategic storytelling consultant and professor, described how her outlook on life changed once she found her community with other women of color in photography.

      Polly Irungu, photographer and founder of Black Women Photographers, spoke to the importance of representation of women of color in this field and how utilizing social media can improve your business.

      Deanne Fitzmaurice, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial and commercial photographer, explained how she uses her emotions to capture some of her most potent, powerful work.

      I hope that by hearing these women’s diverse perspectives you’ll gain a more three-dimensional understanding of women in the photography industry. Learn from their work and careers and challenge what you know about photography’s history. By the time we reach the end, you’ll have come to appreciate the importance of representation in photography.

      Gender discrimination is not limited to people who identify as women and is often more overt to non-binary photographers. I reached out to non-binary photographers but was unable to coordinate schedules to sit down for interviews prior to publication. I urge you to discover and support the work of non-binary photographers through organizations such as Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, Authority Collective, and Black Women Photographers.

      . . .

      Throughout the course of my interviews with these photographers, three recurring themes emerged: advocate for taking up the space you deserve, grow from failure, and find your community. Their unified message rang out like the cry I hadn’t realized I needed to hear. It was my sophomore year at Georgetown University, and the coronavirus pandemic had forced me off campus and right back where I’d started: my childhood bedroom. In reflecting on how to make meaningful use of my time, I decided to focus on photography, a passion that had been pushed to the back burner while I was at college.

      I took my first photography class when I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school. Film Photo provided me a space to express myself creatively through a technical medium. Lacking most other forms of artistic skills, I had always grown frustrated in art classes. In photography, however, I understood what it meant to think creatively. I loved the combination of art with technology, something I could intuitively learn while simultaneously expand upon. I learned how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO interact to balance the light in a photo. I understood how to remove film from a camera, process it, and develop it into prints.

      I found peace in the dark room twice a week, a welcome escape from my high school’s intensity. I didn’t feel restricted to a set of rules or expectations for the class. I experimented with aperture, comparing the depths of field in identical images. I double-exposed prints, exploring how two different photographs work to create a third. Throughout this process, I failed. Many times. Through these failures, however, I grew. I exposed prints for too long, I shot in the wrong lighting, and I used the focus on my camera incorrectly. These failures helped me learn what not to do.

      My teacher, Bami Adedoyin, taught me basic photography skills and in doing so, gave me a lens through which I could see a world much bigger than my own. She provided me the confidence to claim my space in it. She was patient, knowledgeable, and passionate about teaching young women photography. When I spoke to Ms. Ade for this book, she recalled that what drew her to teaching at an all-girls school was that she wanted us to know that our goals, desires, and dreams were never secondary to any man’s.

      I was interested to explore how I could deepen young women’s understanding of the world, she said, and how the medium of photography has worked to enlighten, to celebrate, but also to educate young women around their own creativity and their own sense of self expression.

      Community takes many different forms. Photography has strengthened my own relationships by giving me a reason to bring people together. I have documented my family reunions, photographed our Christmas parties, and captured photos of my friends playing sports. In this way, photography has helped me find community in non-artistic spaces as well.

      Today, I shoot both digital and film. I’ve recently begun experimenting with Polaroids. Though I use both mediums, my heart still lies with film photography. I love that I can’t check the outcome of the photo, allowing me to be more present as I shoot. Film has allowed me to create a balance between living in the moment and taking photos. In an age where so much of our lives are digitized, photography has taught me how to remain present with myself, those around me, and the camera.

      1 Women Photograph Data, Women Photograph, accessed March 10, 2021. 

      PART ONE

      An Introduction to Photography: Its History, Fields, and Representation

      Chapter 1

      Photography from 1839 to the Present

      It was a good old boys’ club for a long time, the veteran photojournalist explained, too long.

      Ami Vitale knows her way around the good old boys’ club. Today, she’s a Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic Magazine photographer, writer, and filmmaker. But when she entered the industry, she had to work harder and perform better than her male counterparts, just to get her foot in the door. Women with cameras had been kicking that door for nearly two hundred years. Once they’d broken through, they left it ajar for Vitale and other women photographers to follow in their footsteps.

      Early Developments in Photography and Its Role in Colonization

      The old boys’ club dates back to the early 1800s when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, Henry Fox Talbot, and John Herschel began separately experimenting with light exposure techniques. Early forms of photography consisted of heliographs, photograms, and cyanotypes. With the invention of the first camera in 1839, France marked the beginning of the camera’s century-long technological development.²

      History often overlooks the women involved with photography’s creation, focusing exclusively on the men credited with its invention. Constance Talbot, the wife of photography pioneer Henry Fox Talbot, was the first woman to take a photograph. Though Henry Talbot was a notable English photography pioneer, Constance Talbot also worked as a photographer and aided him with printing.³

      Anna Atkins, a botanist and photographer, designed and created the first book of photographs. Her photo book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, was published in 1843. The book was a collection of her handmade cyanotype prints and paved the way for photographers to come.⁴

      As photography developed, it became increasingly involved with colonization efforts, targeting and exploiting Indigenous populations around the world. By the late nineteenth century, Britain had sent ten thousand missionaries across the globe, often equipped with photography equipment. Missionary groups photographed Indigenous communities to document and study them, upholding racist and xenophobic ideas. The attempted documentation of these groups of people resulted in faster destruction of their cultures.⁵

      Though it was useful for documenting history, the camera aided with colonization. White photographers often portrayed non-white groups in ways that reinforced negative stereotypes to the public. Notable

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