Subject: Being a Woman in this "Boys' Club" Industry

Our "Why"

Chances are, you're familiar with The Grove Studio's mission of increasing the representation of women in interior and architectural photography. Really, I chose to focus on this niche because it's where I was experiencing struggles, but the reality is that women have an uphill battle in all commercial photography.

Recently there was a great article written by a fellow female photographer who also felt the struggles of being a woman in a commercial photography niche (she happens to do mostly wildlife). You can check out her article --->> Here

I was ecstatic to see this article! This is a conversation I started having over a year ago, and it needs to happen more often. To help shed some light on this topic, I've decided to publish the full slide set from my presentation at the 2020 PFRE Virtual Conference, titled “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Being a Female Architectural Photographer in Today's World”. In this slide set you'll find a breakdown of some shocking statistics about commercial photography (there are currently no statistics about architectural photography specifically). It also talks about a few examples of women being talked about or looked at negatively in our professional culture. Finally, it lays out some things that can be done to help combat this.

The main thing to do is to be open about the fact that our professional culture in this field has been geared towards men for decades, and that women are battling negative assumptions on a daily basis. It very much is still a “boys' club”, but that doesn't mean things can't change!

I hope you take some time to read the article above and take a look at the slide set from last year's presentation. As always, I'm here if you need to ask questions or talk about it. Let's get that dialogue going!

Take care, be kind, and I'll see you again next week!

PRO TIP:

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You take several shots to blend in Photoshop for one photo. Each shot has a specific reason for being taken – maybe a particular spot of glare is removed, or maybe some items on a table are being highlighted.

You import to Lightroom, do your culling, then gather those shots to take them to Photoshop for blending.

When they're brought into Photoshop, you struggle putting those layers in an order that makes sense. Which one was for that glare spot again? And what was that other layer taken for??

Here's what I do to help organize my thoughts a bit.

Once you bring the layers into Photoshop and are sorting them out, change the layer name! As you decide what each layer is for, change the name so you know what it's for when you're blending. To change the layer name, just double click on the current layer name and it'll select it. Change it to what you want and press Return/Enter. And done!

Here's an example from a recent photo:

ON THE CALENDAR:

Maybe if I keep wishing for it, it'll start...

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Subject: Being a Woman in this "Boys' Club" Industry

Our "Why"