“Good” photographs
The white male gaze and how we privilege ways of seeing
Co-authored by Savannah Dodd and Andrew Jackson
In her 2006 article, The Treacherous Medium, Susie Linfield proclaimed that “photography was, and perhaps still is, the great democratic medium.” Yet, since the 1919 first appearance of photography within The Illustrated Daily News, it has historically been the white, cis, heterosexual male gaze which has authored and shaped how the world has been reflected back to itself via photojournalism.
It has been this particular gaze which has continued to dictate not only how the world is seen, but also what is considered ‘good’, and therefore ‘award-winning’, photography. What immediately springs to mind are the very familiar, and often reproduced, tropes of black and brown bodies, posited as passive victims of this white gaze. If, as then World Press Photo secretary Stephen Mayes said during his 2009 keynote speech, “every year, the jury is astonished by the repetition of subjects and the lack of variety in the coverage” how can photojournalism expand its focus and radically reconsider what constitutes ‘good’ photography?
Photojournalism has long considered itself an ethical medium that is underpinned by truth-telling. Indeed, Scott Baradell and Anh. D. Stack are quite stark regarding the prime directive of photojournalism: “Our Pictures Must Always Tell the Truth.” Ethical discussions within the medium focus predominantly on the manufacture and production of the photograph (mainly what appears to occur in front of the camera) and seldom upon the structural practices which maintain it (that which occurs behind it).
But there is a tension in photojournalism between the ethics of telling the truth about the world we live in and the lack of representation of the range of experiences, and therefore the range of “truths”, that exist within society.
Daniella Zalcman, the founder of Women Photograph, writes:
“Roughly 85 percent of working photojournalists today are men. That means that a disproportionate amount of the news imagery we consume, whether it’s of war or sports or politics or fashion, is framed and filtered through the masculine experience. There are many reasons why this is dangerous. Photographs don’t just tell us stories, they tell us how to see.”
This is not to say that there exist inherent and incontrovertible “male” and “female” ways of seeing. Instead, this means that men and women, and of course people of different ethnicities and sexual orientations, experience and move through the world differently, and this difference is relayed through the images that they create. The problem, Zalcman explains, is that by consuming a disproportionate number of [white] male-created images, we come to understand the world as interpreted by “the [white] masculine experience.”
But why is it that images produced by white men are chosen over images produced by historically marginalised photographers? Is it because editors are just being lazy by perpetually deferring to white male photographers? Or is it something even more insidious and pernicious?
It could be argued that reliance on white men is the manifestation of a much bigger problem: editors privilege this particular way of seeing over all others.
David Walker explains:
“for clients across the spectrum, the archetype of a photographer tends to be a white male. The preference for male photographers ‘is the way things have been shaped. It’s what clients are comfortable with. It’s what they’ve known,’ says photographer Diana Zalucky, describing a system that favors men out of habit.”
The white male photographer fits clients’ expectations, and as such, he is considered the more credible source. He is upheld as the most capable, the most objective, the most truthful observer, and finally, the most authoritative voice. His images are trusted. For representations to be seen as reliable and true, they have to be presented to us in ways which we already presume them to exist, and as such the same photographers continue to tell the same stories to audiences accepting of these “known truths.” This, of course, is how stereotypes are maintained and continued.
Concepts of masculinity are also connected to the idea of how “good” photography is achieved. This is particularly true of photojournalism, which conjures to mind an image of the photographer, out on his own, risking life and limb in a foreign land for the perfect shot. Jörg Colberg, Professor of photography at Hartford Art School, explains that photojournalism is a kind of “macho cult”:
“What you see in the world of photojournalism is merely an expression (and variant) of something you can see everywhere else, something that can be summarized quite simply as a macho cult, which rewards very male aspects of photography and disadvantages the rest.”
Thus the icon of the “good” photographer is male, and he is white. And the foreign land in which he moves is not another country of people like himself, but a country of people with a different skin colour, language, and cultural heritage. As this rugged artist with his brazen confidence is out photographing this foreign land, he exhibits no reflexivity. He does not question his position in this context, nor his authority to document it. For Kainaz Amaria and Nina Berman, there is “an othering that comes from the belief that the man behind the camera has a privileged artistic sense, an inherent superiority despite rarely knowing the local language, or living in the region or neighborhood he’s covering, or having any sustained connection to what he’s seeing.”
Statistics are stark. World Press Photo reports that of 5,202 photographers from more than 100 countries over a four-year period,
● more than one half participating photographers are Caucasian/White
● 80% are men
● Two-thirds are between the age of 30 and 49
● 1% — that’s 52 in total — of participating photographers classify themselves as Black.
If we take a moment to consider the hundreds of thousands of photographs of Black people that have been reproduced in publications during the course of photojournalism’s 100-year history, it is undeniable that the vast majority of those photographs have been made and continue to be made by people who do not look like the people they are photographing. One could argue further that those photographs have been and are being taken by those who have no real understanding of the lives they are representing. What we have is the construction of Black identities represented through the filter of Whiteness.
Two things happen when photo editors privilege white male ways of seeing:
- The photographers who are willing and able to adapt to the dominant model of “good” photography adapt.
- This trickles down to the photographers who are creating those images, and manifests as a pressure to all photographers, regardless of their marginalisation, to conform to the accepted canons.
As Lagos Photo Festival director Azu Nwagbogu explains, “the way Africa is represented internationally is caused by a lack of diversity in photojournalism, and that damage these representations cause are far reaching.” This is compounded further when we consider the pressure put upon those 52 Black photographers to conform to an expected white male gaze, as Nwagbogu continues, “African photographers also tell these [white] stories because they think it’s what the West wants to see…They instinctively begin to follow these canons because they think this is what will get published.”
African photographers, and to extrapolate upon this further, photographers of colour in general, via their adherence to these canons, exhibit and replicate the very same form of Orientalism within their photographs, creating images which objectify and victimise — just like their white counterparts. And women photographers are also forced to adhere to the norms of these male ‘canons’ and adhere to these privileged ways of seeing.
The photographers who are unwilling or unable to adapt are left behind. Their work goes unpublished, they are forced to seek alternative means of funding their work, and many eventually leave the profession. This becomes evident when we look at the representation of women in the industry at later stages in their career. In the field of journalism, one research report determines that, “by the time women are in their mid-40s, 33.2% will have left the newsroom.” Amanda Mustard explains succinctly: “Female photojournalists go from a majority in university to the minority in the industry.”
Privileging white, male ways of seeing is not only detrimental for the careers of marginalised photojournalists, it also harms the industry as a whole. As Natalie Keyssar explains, “‘we cripple our industry’ by disseminating a world view that’s ‘incredibly narrow.’”
But even beyond concerns for the fate of the industry, disseminating an “incredibly narrow” worldview has far-reaching consequences that impact society as a whole. Daniella Zalcman is clear: “Photographs don’t just tell us stories, they tell us how to see. So when representations of womanhood, the female body or femininity are largely constructed by men, it’s not just that they define us, they teach us how to see ourselves.”
Additional ramifications of this narrow worldview are patent and measurable. Leigh Donaldson writes of a 2011 study, Media Representations & Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys, stating:
“…negative mass media portrayals were strongly linked with lower life expectations among Black men. These portrayals, constantly reinforced in print media, on television, the internet, fiction shows, print advertising and video games, shape public views of and attitudes toward men of colour. They not only help create barriers to advancement within our society, but also ‘make these positions seem natural and inevitable’.”
Privileging “white” or “male” ways of seeing does not end with the inclusion of marginalised groups in processes of selection. For it is not only male editors who are hiring white male photographers over other marginalised groups, but female editors are, too. Interviewed for an article by David Walker, photographer Andrea Bruce says: “It’s not male against female … Women in the industry are also contributing to the sexism: A number of female photo editors in high positions still give most of their assignments to [white] male photographers.”
It is the broader socio-cultural context that determines what photographs are chosen for circulation, and that shapes how we learn to value different ways of seeing. And it consistently puts white, male ways of seeing right at the top.
Of course, the importance of representing diversity on our panels and in positions of power within the photography industry is indisputable. Alex Cooke highlights the problematics of under-representation within photography:
“Both Canon and Nikon have ambassador programs, whose primary focus is representing the brand and furthering photography education. Part of educating is passive; that is, educating is not just the act of passing forth information. It’s also a matter of representation — the role model. Like it or not, we learn, both on a conscious and subconscious level, partly through mimicry and a constant feedback loop of comparison. This is particularly important for younger people and children, who lack some of the finer nuances of critical thinking necessary to separate ability, character, identity, and biology. Adults aren’t particularly proficient at that either.”
Some might argue that using ambassador roles as a yardstick to explore the demography of photojournalism is problematic, but what Cooke clearly articulates is simple: representation matters. The continued affirmation of the white male both validates and creates a normalising of who is a photographer whilst also rubber stamping a normalising of who isn’t — or who can’t be. There seems to be an underwriting, unconscious or otherwise, of who is a credible source and who isn’t.
However, diversity alone is not enough. When we apply to photography juries, for example, having a diverse jury does not necessarily result in diverse winners. A woman might still, if subconsciously, privilege white male ways of seeing, and, as a juror, select a photograph that epitomises white male ways of seeing and of being in the world. The woman in this scenario is still a part of, and impacted by, the broader socio-cultural context that puts a higher value on the white male gaze. Therefore, we need to go further. We need a paradigm shift about the meaning of “good” photography.
Donald Weber puts forward a new framework. He suggests that we shift toward a framework that values “good work”:
“In essence, it’s about excellence, social responsibility, and ethics. ‘Good work’ aims to be meaningful for the individual practitioner, but also contribute to the overall well-being of a society, be it through professional responsibility or the well-being contribution to citizenry. … ‘Good work’ is about the ability to be challenged and engage socially, to draw a moral identity from the work produced and its impact upon community.”
This idea of photography moves away from the adventure-seeking, macho cult that has characterised traditional conceptions of photojournalism. It moves toward something that is motivated by a desire to create a positive impact and underpinned by an ethical approach. Of course, there remains a concern of who would be the gatekeepers with the power to determine what constitutes this “good work.”
Weber’s promotion of “good work” is not the only movement toward a paradigm shift in how we value different ways of seeing. We have also seen the rise of important initiatives like Women Photograph and Natives Photograph that aim to highlight the work of female and indigenous photographers and improve their representation in the industry.
The movement toward new ways of seeing are slow-growing, but for them to take a true foothold within the industry there has to be a radical top-down revisioning of what constitutes “good” photography and who is enabled to produce it. Until then, the people who are in positions of power to issue awards, select for publication, and otherwise determine what constitutes “good” photography need to lead the charge.
Andrew Jackson is a photographer interested in exploring the challenges of selfhood, representation and narration. He is an award-winning recipient of the Autograph ABP / Light Work (AIR) International Photography Residency in Syracuse, New York and a graduate of the MA documentary photography program at Newport in Wales.
His works focus on notions of belonging, revised histories, memory, family, storytelling and urbanism. In 2018 he was shortlisted for the Elliott Erwitt Fellowship and the Magnum Foundation Social Justice fellowship.
Savannah Dodd is a photographer and anthropologist. She founded the Photography Ethics Centre in 2017 with the aim of raising awareness about ethics and increasing ethical literacy across the photography industry. She develops online courses, facilitates workshops, and consults for organisations. Her work with the Centre was shortlisted for the Howard Chapnick Grant in 2018.
She earned her MA in anthropology at the Graduate Institute of International Development Studies in Geneva (2015), and she is currently pursuing her PhD in through a study of ethics in photographic archives at Queen’s University Belfast.
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