The Photography Show & The Video Show – has revealed details of this year’s Women Who Photo & Film (WWP&F) campaign. Now in its second year, the campaign aims to shine a light on female photographers and filmmakers and the challenges they have faced when starting out their careers in a male-dominated industry. Ahead of The Photography Show & The Video Show’s Virtual Festival in September, 21 female ambassadors – each specializing in different areas of photography and filmmaking including weddings, sport, fashion, wildlife, music and corporate – have come together to celebrate the work of other women as well as sharing insights, experience, and advice.
In the 2018 TED Talk by celebrated photographer Jill Greenberg, she revealed some staggering numbers indicating that between 2013 and 2017, 92% of adverts in the US were shot by men, as are 85% of magazine covers. Meanwhile in the UK, despite women making up 70-80% of students on photography courses, as few as 13% of them go on to make a career out of their passion. These figures decline further across filmmaking and videography.
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The Women Who Photo & Film campaign aims to empower both professionals and amateurs to shout about their achievements, and has already generated widespread industry support with the likes of Sony, Epson, Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic. In the run-up to the show, the campaign’s ambassadors will host Facebook and Instagram Live sessions to talk about their work and the advice they wish they had been given to support their careers from the start. Many will also feature on the speaker program – find out more here.
The full list of this year’s ambassadors includes:
- Ami Robertson, who is deeply passionate about helping women in business raise their visibility, something she is able to support via her brand, The Woman & The Wolf, which focuses on photography for female entrepreneurs.
- Angela Nicholson, who is co-founder of Camera Jabber and Amateur Photographer’s Technical Editor and Head of Testing for Future Publishing’s extensive photography portfolio. Angela also founded SheClicks in August 2018.
- Ashleigh Jadee, who specializes in directing video content for the music and fashion industries. Having originally started off as a photographer, over her career she has captured artists including Skepta, Chip, JME, Wiley, and Wretch 32 as well as producing content for Kiss 100, Beats by Dre, G Frsh and Luxottica. In 2018, she directed H&M’s global Christmas campaign and since then her directorial catalog has continued to expand working with music artists including Joss Stone, Roddy Ricch, Ms Banks, James Morrison, WSTRN, and more.
- Brooke Shaden, one of the world’s leading self-portrait artists. She photographs herself and becomes the characters of dreams inspired by a childhood of intense imagination and fear.
- Carys Kaiser, aka The Drone Lass who comes from a TV production background with 17 years’ experience doing everything from sound recording, working as a camera assistant and camera operator, to self-shooting PD (producer-director).
- Cat Goryn, a sports and events photographer who is passionate about opening up this area of the industry to more women. One of her career highlights was photographing the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, where only approx 4% of the official photographers were women.
- Dorothy Tamuno, a 30-something creative commercial photographer and Content Creator. Currently four years into her career her clients include Vanessa Kingori MBE (British Vogue) and American actress Nafessa Williams.
- Emma Drabble, a commercial and commissioned professional photographer. Trained in Marseille, France in the 1980s, Emma has an extensive documentary photography background and is a Panasonic ambassador and Getty contributor. She is committed to sharing her lifetime of knowledge as a working photographer through regular local, national, and international speaking engagements and workshops.
- Emma Wilson, a highly regarded international wedding filmmaker, based in Switzerland, who spent twenty years at the BBC as a newsreader and video journalist. She is a qualified videographer trainer and mentor and runs a corporate video production company – The Story Creatives.
- Fabrizia Costa, whose passion for photography started when she worked as a fashion and beauty editor for some of the top magazines in Milan. Today she specializes in documentary photography and portraits, looking to capture stories and special relationships. She also coaches photographers, holds workshops and classes, and is passionate about supporting women within the industry.
- Heather Hughes, who first started taking photos in the 80s and now focused on travel filming, wedding, corporate, and social media videography. Heather went deaf at the age of three, but never let it get in the way of working as a videographer.
- Iulia David, a London-based photographer specializing in editorial, commercial and beauty portrait photography. Her clients include Little Mix, Bobbi Brown, Little Mix Cosmetics, and Lash Perfect.
- Jade Keshia Gordon, an award-winning fashion and beauty photographer who works with fashion brands and bloggers alike, as well as high profile industry brands such as Manfrotto and Lastolite. Her career highlight was a 2017 campaign for Nike Curve shotting two plus-size influencers. Jade was also a guest on the podcast Life’s A Bag, which is dedicated to empowering and celebrating women of color. She will also feature as a speaker at this year’s virtual show.
- Jennifer McCord, a music photographer who has shot the likes of Ellie Goulding and Fall Out Boy as well as being the official photographer for festivals such as Reading, Isle of Wight, and All Points East. She’s now working with Ellie on a long-term basis and recently worked on a campaign for Jameson with Complex Magazine in December as well as touring with Westlife and Oh Wonder.
- Laura Babb, wedding photographer and founder of SNAP photography festival. She’s worked on close to 300 weddings all around the world, capturing modern nuptial shots.
- Lilla Nyeki, a London based video producer who has developed a niche as a freelancer directing, shooting, and editing beauty and fashion films for companies who launch new products or seasonal campaigns, and has worked with Iconic London, Phlearn (US) and QMS Medicosmetics.
- Megan Jepson, a photographer and videographer who works across fashion, documentary, portrait, and social content. Megan won the Portrait of Britain Megan in 2018 and has worked with brands from Nike and Selfridges to Vodafone with numerous events and fashion companies in-between.
- Paula Abu, also known as ‘@narcography’ on social media, who is a 22-year-old, Nigerian photographer and director from South London. She’s also in her final year at university studying Pharmacy. Paula has been shooting professionally since the end of 2017 and would describe her style as a mix of all her favorite aspects of documentary, street, and editorial photography.
- Shay Roti, a young, Cambridge-based photographer. Her work includes fashion photography with contemporary and sports brands as well as portraits and landscapes.
- Tania Esteban, a bilingual zoologist, wildlife filmmaker, and fully qualified CAA drone pilot. She has worked on blue-chip natural history documentaries at the online digital projects for BBC, Netflix and WWF as well as other indies. She is currently working at Silverback Films on a new 8K BBC landmark series and continues to shoot and produce her own short independent films for Panasonic and Atomos as a brand ambassador.
- Theresa Macharia, a young London-based photographer, just starting off in her career. The focus of her work is lifestyle blogger photography and fashion editorial shots. Theresa has partnered up with two female filmmakers to create EyeSeeVisuals, a visual storytelling collective dedicated to the re-presenting of African and Caribbean countries through their experiences and that of natives.
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Normally hosted at Birmingham’s NEC over four days, this year The Photography Show & The Video Show will be held online from 20 – 21 September. Registration is free.
