Women & Photography

Way back in the early 80's, I got my first camera.

It was my first SLR - i.e. looking through the lens instead of a viewfinder, watching the focus change as I spun the lens. The clarity, the possibilities - it was as if a cloak had been lifted from what I thought photography could be. 

I was hooked and within months, I had given up my job in a big travel company, got a much lower paid job as a photographer's assistant and secured a place in DIT Kevin Street. And the rest is, as the say, history.

From being one of only a handful of female photographers in the industry 40 years ago, today the photography industry is much more evenly divided. Some areas, like newborn, which didn't exist back then are now almost exclusively female.

The change has been largely unsung, the growth in female participation has been steady and has opened up a different perspective, which is to be welcomed.

It wasn't good that in the past, we had a largely male view of the world as seen from behind the lens in spheres from journalism right through to business imaging and of course, social events like weddings and social subjects like families. 

So on International Women's Day, I am proud to be in an industry that has evolved and made room for women's participation, unnoticed, into the 21st century.