One woman has set up an online directory consisting entirely of female photographers in a bid aimed to remove the excuse from high-end clients that they can’t seem to source any talented women to work behind the lens.
Jill Greenberg, a talented photographer in herself, opened the directory entitled Alreadymade this year. Its creation was inspired in part by the stats showing that despite women being responsible for 85 percent of consumer purchases, up to 90 percent of photographers booked for entertainment and advertising shoots are male. This is especially perplexing given that the majority of graduating art and photography students are women. The issue, she says, is one that bleeds into all aspects of the creative industry, with many streaming and TV networks hiring “almost zero women.”
The criteria for the inclusion of a female photographer is that they must have at least one “major” photoshoot with a budget of $125,000 under their belt. She drew on a nonprofit organization of women directors, called Free the Bird, as her motivation. FTB put pressure on large brands to pledge to include female directors in the bidding for their commercials.
Speaking to My Modern Met, she remarked:
I do have to say that I find it disappointing that there are some women clients which never hire women. For many reasons they hire men who they suspect are more capable due to bias, or due to the fact that if women are not getting hired as often, they are out of practice, or plain and simple, they hire hot guys they want to spend the day with. Sure, as a hetero woman it is fun to hang out with hot guys but that is not a good reason to screw over fellow women.
View the site and browse the female talent currently being showcased here.
Lead image credit: rawpixel.com from Pexels.
And who did she do it to? John McCain, one of the most humane and honest politician the US has ever had. Childish and stupid. Oh well.
An artist who is not political is just a wall decorator.
Your words, not mine. I said nothing about respect. I said one has no message, no meaning, and his job is to reproduct through technics the likeliness of nice things to please the eye. That's why it is nice to decorate walls, but probably not suitable for art books.
"The criteria for the inclusion of a female photographer is that they must have at least one “major” photoshoot with a budget of $125,000 under their belt."
So... they are purposefully excluding women who have not landed the big jobs yet?
Aren't those the photographers that could use a helping hand the most?
Exactly, also this as an astronomically high number. That pretty much excludes all pro photographers other than those in a very tiny minority. I imagine very few top-tier photographers ever work with a budget that large in their entire lives. (unless, of course, the ad buy is included in that number, but I somehow doubt it is)
Also side note: That is one sad excuse for a website considering it is representing photographers who are worth millions of dollars.
It seems like the idea is to exclude everyone except the very tiny minority at the top — that's what "crème de la crème" means, right?
So, in a nutshell: "Lets help those who have no trouble getting jobs and exclude those who are actually the ones getting excluded from gigs?"
Its like creating an African American aid organization that only helps rich African American rappers.
If the purpose of the site is to help the individual listed photographers get work, then yes it would seem to be an exercise in vanity. But I don't think that is the purpose of the site. In the Modern Met interview, the purpose is stated clearly: '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.' I'm not a female photographer, so I don't know their experience, but it sounds like they are hearing from high-end clients that the reason they only hire men is that it's hard to find good women photographers. The site seems to be designed as evidence that they haven't looked hard enough.
"I imagine very few top-tier photographers ever work with a budget that large in their entire lives."
In the advertising world that I brush up against once in a while it is not uncommon for budgets of that size. Not every day but not a shock. I think that you would be surprised.
Many clients/agencies now bundle projects / campaigns having the same person or company shoot for ads, marketing, PR, catalog, internal uses, social media, videos, BTS videos, etc, instead of parsing the project out to 5 or 6 people.
I am far from top tier but in the past I was the 3rd bid on a few projects like that. 4 to 6 weeks ranging from $90k to $170k I did not get them but someone did LoL
When they say "budget" to me that means all of the production costs, fees, etc. May or may not include licensing. She wants to be sure those in her club can manage the moving parts of large projects.
It seems really stupid that there is no attempt at getting more women into the 1% club with metoriing or promotion, the more gals in the top tier the more will be hired.
And the wheels fell of her argument when she brought up the women hiring hot male photogs.
What a dope.
They are excluding men too so why are we surprised? In a world that (mainly the Left and various feminists organization) that tries to be equal and united, we see more and more female blogs groups and organizations that exclude men...and some exclude women of certain race and religion.
I was rejected from a blog like that called is called something like 'togs and moms' or something like that. Apparently fathers and men in general, are not welcome. We are welcome to read of course but not to participate.
It's sad.
Can we not make this a "left" vs. "right" thing for once? Gender relations is not a political issue. It's a human issue.
And for the record, I think it's fine for women to have communities that exclude men just like it's fine for men to have communities that exclude women. We each need our spaces. Commerce, however, is a different space entirely and gender should not play a role in it one way or the other (nor should race, religion, or any other factor for the matter).
Agree, it is vital that commerce is a melange of everyone regardless of sex, race or religion.
But I for one do not agree with men only women only golf courses, clubs, forums etc.
Women changed the photography landscape in such a dramatic way. They brought ideas and concepts that were just not there 20 years ago.
Men and women think differently and see things differently. I don't see any advantage in having separate work groups. It's going backwards.
I am happy that most photographers, of both genders, see the benefit of working together rather than apart.
Well, a golf course would be a business so I agree that there should be no gender restrictions. But if I want to start a camera club for guys and have a "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" policy (I have no idea why I would want such a thing, but using it as a hypothetical), I think it's fine. So whether it's clubs, forums, social media groups, etc. as long as it's not business, I think having membership restrictions is fine.
Granted, in the case of a golf course, you are often dealing with country clubs, which is its own beast though I would argue that those are still businesses since there are fees involved.
Like you said, why would you create a men only forum :-). I am not even talking about the morality of it, we have the right to do so, fine. I am talking about the practicality of it.
My wife who would not know lens from a camera and HATES her photos taken, see details and nuances in my photos that I sometimes completely miss when taking them.
It's not only due to the fact that I often focus on the technical aspect of things. It is also the way she sees things, it is very refreshing. I often ask her to give me a hand and go over my photos to weed out the ones she does not like, it helped me a lot in analyzing my photos.
It would be arrogant and plain stupid of me to exclude women when creating a professional club because it would leave such a hole in all aspect of our interest from the business side to the creative side.
Here is something I would like to know, percentage of men photographers hiring women assistants and second shooter compare to women hiring men.
And those in that tier don't need some lame site like that.
Is she seriously blaming this problem on women clients hiring hot male photographers? Maybe instead of the $125,000 min budget, she should only include hot women. Surely if women clients hire photographers because they're hot, men would hire women photographers for the same reason. Unless of course men don't do that sort of thing.
"The Crème de la Crème of Female of content creators..."
You mean just another way to further segregate female artists from being uplifted and represented? I don't see how this is supportive of your fellow woman when you're being exclusive. I mean, I get what her whole idea is about, but she's just doing the same darn thing she's trying to fight against when she's representing only a handful of women who fit within her criteria. It's just another way to further keep women down while wrapping it in a pretty bow and calling it pro-female artist.
Just because most art graduates are women, doesn’t mean those all turn into great working photographers. And I always hate these debates on men vs women hired. because clients want someone who’s work is great, and is a pleasure to work with. If jobs aren’t coming in from really high end clients, no matter your gender, there is probably an underlying cause.
Out of curiosity, is there evidence to suggest that this majority of female students graduating from art schools or with degrees in photography actually go on to try to pursue a professional career in photography? From my observations, the vast majority of student who graduate with a degree in fine arts or any type end up pursuing careers or jobs that have nothing to do with the arts. I suspect that this also extends to most degrees in general.
Who says there's a correlation between consumer purchases, photographers being booked, and art school graduates? You'd have to prove that women are pursuing photography to the same degree as men to make any sort of claim that the industry is simply rejecting them.
I don't even have a photographer job. Anyone hiring? I'll relocate. I have a degree in Professional Photography. I'm fun to work with. I also have a pretty well rounded photo skill set and a printed portfolio for viewing.
Thank you
Aaron Bratkovics
aaron@aaronbratkovics.com
www.aaronbratkovics.com
Well, you need to refine your marketing program. I don't think very many people on fstoppers hire photographers.... :)
hha.
You don't even have contact info on your website...
It's at the bottom goofball.
Perhaps. I don't see it (I'm using an old computer, so that can be a problem).
.
"But, for so many reasons, the world we inhabit is blanketed with images lensed by white men, 90% white men."
"Women are responsible for 85% of the consumer purchasing power."
Where does this data come from? I'm not denying it, but I'd like to check the source - without it the data is meaningless.
It is probably a made up statistic based on women influence on purchases which would be families with a man and a woman, two women or woman only. So the only household where a woman would not have influence would be a single man. Is it 85% maybe I dunno.
And in the business / commercial / advertising photo world men shoot the vast majority of high end jobs. Probably not 90% but a lot