Sony is Calling for Female Photographers: Apply for 'Alpha Female Plus' Grant Program

Sony wants more female photographers for its Alpha Female ambassador program, with grants for projects which offer $5,000, a full frame Sony camera and lens, and more.

The diversity of brand ambassadors for major camera brands has been a hot topic for a while. Most recently, Nikon South Africa came under fire — and for good reason — for announcing seven new affiliated influencers, only one of whom is Black, despite more than three-quarters of South Africa being Black.

Sony have started a female specific movement to address any imbalance, and now they are calling for more to apply.

If you're a female photographer or videographer with an idea for a project, you could secure $5,000 in grants, a full frame Sony camera and lens, a year long Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps subscription, one year of Sony PRO Support membership, and the chance to be featured across Sony's many channels.

Interested? Apply here.

Robert K Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

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Sony is so aggressive with their marketing, it's actually super annoying. My Youtube feed was completely filled with "Is this the best vlogging camera ever?!" videos when the ZV1 came out.... then the same when the A7SIII came out. It's super annoying.

I'd ban pc rubbish like that. There are NO barriers to females being photographers. So why discriminate against men for?

cry me a river

Dude, it's MARKETING! Sony already markets to you and me. They want to urge more photographers to buy their stuff...and pushing stuff to women doesn't mean they are doing less for you...SMFH

I’m hearing this “IT’S JUST MARKETING” argument all the time as if in marketing everything is allowed.

Dude, this too is marketing. Black guy gets washed to become Chinese.

Doesn’t make it less bigoted

I suppose ALPHA MALE didn’t had the right ring to it

..in today's world. Does ALPHA FEMALE even exist in Homo Sapiens?

Ha Ha. That was a funny comment. I enjoyed that one.

I don't feel this is discriminating, since I was a small content creator I got 10,000$ from Sony due to a sponsorship. It's a marketing tactic. They are already sponsoring many males in the industry so it's refreshing that some female's get into the spotlight too since there aren't many out there. This male vs female fighting it's childish in most cases. Sony did before marketing like this and always faced backlash because no matter who would win there always be people like "Well (s)he won only because..."

It is absolutely disgusting how sony is discriminating against men in this scholarship. There is absolutely no opportunities that are strictly male only. If there was woman would have a meltdown. I will never buy anything from sony again, let women support this sexist company.

So Sony is busy with sexism and busy with racism (other article). Why should you buy Sony if your a white or Asian male? It appears Sony hates you.

Jeroen,

I don't think that it looks like Sony hates me (as a white male). But it is a little disheartening that Sony doesn't have anything special just for my demographic. That would be fine with me if they didn't have anything special for other demographics, but when they do something special for one set of people, based on their sex or race, and leave other sets of people excluded, that doesn't seem right.

I don't believe that eligibility for any corporate or government policies or programs should be based on sex or race, unless they can make sure that every other race and sex has an equal opportunity. Nothing for any sex or race segment that isn't available to every other segment.

If an individual wants to base his/her decision on sex or race, they have a right to do so, because that is their decision to make. But when it comes to corporate or government things, there should not be any discrimination at all.

Corporations are people too my friend.
Why can't a business, in it's own best interest choose to concentrate some of their marketing budget on an under-buying segment of the population? They are trying to make more sales, not take away sales to white males. If they said all of the white male cameras are sold, so no white males will be allowed to buy one until 2021, that would be wrong.

In the did past did you feel left out when you saw in ads were people like you (and me) ? I didn't, as to me it was the norm. I learned a lot when I was shooting for ad agencies.

Sales is not what matters here. Just because something may drive sales doesn’t mean it is acceptable.

There are no female Alphas. Only herd. Females do craft. Art is male. There cannot be an art competition among females. 70000 years of precedent.

What a sad perspective to have. Lets see your wondrous art then! Please do bestow its glory

It appears to me I have to be enrolled in a university to be eligible?