Many talented women photographers have left their mark on history. For example, we can mention the renowned Dorothea Lange, who took Migrant mother, an iconic image of the Great Depression in the USA. We can also think about Elizabeth Lee Miller, who followed American soldiers since the D-Day landings, so between 1944 and 1946, and whose photographs made the world discover the existence of the concentration camps made by the Nazi regime. We can mention Lola Alvarez Bravo too, who represented the Mexican people in an authentic way (she is the subject of one of our podcasts that you will be able to listen on our blog soon…)
But today I would like to focus on contemporary women photographers who are committed to the feminist cause, that you can discover (or rediscover) on social networks, such as Instagram, an important platform for artists and artistic knowledge. Unfortunately, there are so many and one article would not be enough to present them all. However, here are five of them who I have personally been following on Instagram and who are doing a remarkable job. Of course, don’t hesitate to introduce us to other women photographers in the comments!
Charlotte Abramow
Charlotte Abramow is a Belgian photographer and director, known for having photographed the singer Angèle and for having directed her video clip "Balance ton quoi". Noticed when she was 16 years old for her photographs, she started studying images by joining Les Gobelins, a prestigious Parisian school specialized in visual arts from which she graduated in 2015. Very quickly, she demonstrated her feminist commitment representing metaphorically the female sexual organ, thanks to a chewing gum for example, in a series of photographs entitled "Vulvotopia".
Then she included these images in an audiovisual project called "Les Passantes", published the 8th of March 2018 for International Women's Rights Day, on the Youtube platform. The platform first banned it to minors, due to the representation of sexual organs, before reversing this decision after complaints by Internet users. After that, she launched another project called "Find your clitoris", which highlights and removes taboos on female pleasure. During this project, she reacted with a photograph entitled "This is not consent"at a judicial case, which took place in November 2018 in Ireland, where a man was acquitted at his trial for the rape of a 17-year-old girl because she was wearing a thong during the attack.
Last but not least, she made a partnership with Netflix for the release of season 2 of « Sex Education » series and she created a manual on sex, and everything related to it (including notions of consent, desire, pleasure). The Sex Education manual is available free of charge in pdf format
here.
Emma Boonne
@emmaboonne : Instagram / Web site
Emma Boonne is a young franco-dutch photographer based in Paris. Less known than Charlotte Abramow, she is no less talented. Indeed, this photographer noticed that photography was still today a world in which beauty expectations towards women are predominant. Worse yet, she came to realize that despite herself, she had internalized these standards of beauty and had as models only women who had the perfect profiles of these standards dictated by society. Annoyed by these inequalities and in order to change stereotypes, she launched herself into a daring project to prove that all women are beautiful and deserve to be highlighted regardless of their bodies, ages or histories. Her project is called "Stronger Together" and started in 2019.
Nuria Estremera
@nuriaestre : Instagram
In the same spirit, we can also mention Nuria Estremera. Spanish photographer, based in Barcelona. She also fights against the diktats of beauty and wants to photograph women's bodies as they are, with their hair, stretch marks and other elements that are generally perceived as defects. She wants to prove that women have no more obligation than a man to shave their hair, put make up on and dress in a certain way, she wants women to be free and feel comfortable in their body. Also, she wants to break the complex that women have about their menstruation, by showing women wearing sanitary pads, having a small blood mark, because women should not hide themselves for having periods, women should not be embarrassed and feel uncomfortable about something which is just completely natural.
Charlotte Szczepaniak
@charlotte.szczepaniak : Instagram / Web site
Charlotte Szczepaniak is a photographer based in Lille. She is known today thanks to her participation in the book project of the influencer Lena Situations : in fact she is the photographer of all the images of the book Toujours plus (published by Robert Laffont in 2020), including the front page photograph. Known to take vintage style photographs with superb staging, she is also and above all an artist very committed to the fight against breast cancer. Charlotte Szczepaniak wanted to prevent and inform about breast cancer, which is the second most common cancer in the world, by setting up a project called "Tant qu’on respire encore" for which ten women, of all ages, who have been affected by breast cancer, have posed topless. Her project was the subject of an exhibition in Lille in October 2018 as part of "Octobre Rose".
Lisa Miquet
The last photographer presented in this article is Lisa Miquet. After studying communications in our beautiful region of Auvergne-Rhônes Alpes, she finally became a professional photographer. She regularly photographs concerts and other cultural events but at the same time, she also leads projects on feminist subjects that are close to her heart. Also committed against the diktats of beauty, she created a project called "Ornements", in which she photographs women and then sews on the image false hair in wool yarn of all colors. Another feminist project is called "Sang Bleu", in which she derides the fact that the blood of menstruation is presented in advertisements as a blue substance. Last December, she gained a lot of attention by publishing on Instagram a photograph where the model, the influencer @
mybetterself on Instagram, who is real called Louise Aubery, wears a crown of tampons and bills fall from the sky. This photograph was created to denounce and inform about the period poverty that affects more than a million women in France. To go even further in their action, the two young women joined the mutual insurance company Nutuus. The mutual insurance company has committed to donating a box of sanitary protection for each share of the Instagram photograph. From then on, the photograph was shared thousands of times, generating criticism from some people.
Find HERE the full interview of Lisa Miquet!
By Solène D'ARGY
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