A new photography community has launched recently, Glass. It’s currently invitation-only and I got an invitation from a woman I follow on Twitter. So far I am enjoying it. It’s distraction-free, no ads, no influencers, no video, no memes. It’s a bit like Instagram was at the beginning. You can scroll through a blissful stream of great photos; nothing more, nothing less. However it’s suffering from a big problem that has its roots in a gatekeeping issue: 90% of the users are men (keep reading to the end because this isn’t a rant - it does get better).
We all know what exponential growth is in these pandemic times. This is a perfect example: each user has three invitations to give away. We are all more likely to give an invitation to one of our friends, who is more likely to look like us. If all the initial users were white men then the growth of the community is going to be exponentially white men and the problem spirals. My own online community (A Year With My Camera) appeals more to women because of the way I teach (step-by-step with an emphasis on your own journey rather than competition and very little chat about gear). My students are more likely to recommend the course to their women friends and so the ratio of women: men stays at about 80:20.
When I joined the Glass community and scrolled through the users to find people to follow they were all men. I got suspicious and started again, counting how many men I scrolled through until I found a woman. It was 26. Then another one woman, then another 20 or so men, and so on.
Now for the good news: the founders know they have this problem and they are taking steps to fix it. For example they have offered me an unlimited number of invitations to share with other women and underrepresented groups (email me if you want one: emma@emmadaviesphoto.com or send me a DM on Twitter).
It’s working slowly. Now I scroll through ten men to find two women, so the ratio is evening up and I hope it will become equal soon. This only happened because positive action was taken to redress an inequality.
This is an example of where people in a position of power or influence (ie. gatekeepers) have recognised it and decided to take positive steps to redress an imbalance.
Photoland is full of examples where gatekeepers don’t do this. They have a status quo and they either want to keep it or they don’t want to do the extra work to fix an imbalance. If you need a speaker at a conference, an interviewee for your podcast, a quote for your blog post or an actual photographer to take your photographs, do you set aside time to find new photographers or do you rely on Google to churn up the same Top 10 lists?
A couple of resources:
Hire a Black photographer: a list of 1000+ Black photographers
Hundred heroines: a charity dedicated to promoting women in photography
If you know any more lists like this get in touch: emma@emmadaviesphoto.com
Competitions
It’s only recently I’ve thought of competitions as gatekeepers of the industry. But if a competition claims to define the genre (for example Landscape Photographer of the Year or Travel Photographer of the Year) then the owners of the competition are gatekeeping the whole genre whether they like it or not.
This may not seem like a big thing but with my own corner of photoland (landscape photography) I’ve noticed that to be considered “proper landscape photography” your image needs to be “epic”: big mountains and wide vistas. This seems to have stemmed from landscape photography competition winners and the desire to take photos like previous winners. There is an unspoken rule that if you have to hike in the wilderness and wild camp to get in position for your epic shot then it’s a better image than if you can just park up and photograph from the side of the road.
A stock photo of peaks in Patagonia
I don’t agree. A great landscape photographer is someone who can create an image from the land in front of them whether that’s a bucket-list view in Patagonia or a corner of their back yard. You may take greater personal satisfaction from an image you hiked 3,000 feet to get, but it’s not necessarily a better photo just because you sweated on the way there.
The issue with gatekeeping like this is that it normalises one world view at the expense of all others.
Ambassador programmes
Camera manufacturers choose photographer to represent their brand. Fuji has come in for some criticism recently for not only not having half men, half women but for having only one women or in many countries, no women. Click here to see their current ambassadors.
The ambassador programmes create another spiral of the world view of white men taking centre-stage; literally, in many cases, as more speaker invitations are given out to people on lists like this.
In conclusion
You might not think gatekeeping is a big problem in the scheme of things (I’m writing this the day after Kabul fell to the Taliban). But I’m a white woman in her 50s who wants the young women coming behind her to see someone like them in positions of influence. I don’t speak for Black people but I want to see Black people in the same positions. I don’t want white men to be the only gatekeepers in the photography industry.
On a personal note I’m doing something positive rather than just talking about it. I’m launching my own new platform to give a voice to underrepresented photographers; it’s an online exhibition space. Every quarter there will be a new exhibition with four different photographers. One space will always be reserved for students or people with great photos but a small following. The working title is “The Edge Online” and I’m hoping established photographers will share images that are from the more experimental end of their portfolios or things they aren’t “known” for. If you want to put yourself forward to exhibit join my email list below to find out when the first open call will be going out.
Stay in touch
I send out an email at the end of each month with links to new blog posts and details of course launches (“Composition: Beyond the Basics” is coming in September). Once I have a new release of limited edition prints this email list is the first to know about it. I also include highlights of images I have published that month that you might have missed. Join the list here: you’ll get one email per month and nothing else (this is different to the A Year With My Camera once-a-month email).
