#DiversifyTheLens

I'm just going to point out a pretty good article over here: #DiversifyTheLens: Why Your Brand Should Hire More Female Photographers more or less as a PSA.

The piece does contain the implication that you will get different photos if you hire women, which I am on the record as finding suspect. Still, it's a good solid cause in general, and it aims to actually make it easier to find those good female photographers. Half the trouble, at least, has to simply be "we always hire Bill" and having easy access to a solid stable of alternatives to Bill is strategically sound.

This is very much the same thinking that drove some acceptance of women into advertising photography in the early 20th century, according to one reference I read recently. It was a successful argument, to a degree, but female photographers wound up in a niche and mostly did ads for soap and whatnot. If successful, the contemporary version of the argument can end up blocking women out of work targeted at men.

A better argument, in my opinion, is that women are just as good as men, so why on earth would you ignore a huge chunk of the talent pool simply because you like working with Bill? It would be even stronger if you can present a narrative that sounds like "everyone else is hiring women" or at least "many major players are" which you can probably do with a little cherry picking. If you can present the story that there's an imbalance, but it's caused by bush-league loser companies mainly hiring men, you're gettin' someplace.

This piece was already re-published on PetaPixel, where the comments are, predictably, turning into a god damned dumpster fire as every fat-ass basement dwelling asshole who pretends he's a professional photographer weighs in with his imbecile misogyny. I urge you, also, to send email to editor@petapixel.com applauding their republishing the piece, and abhorring the dumpster fire that is the comments. Check first to see if the comments are still a dumpster fire, though. I expect Michael to turn comments off shortly.