The context of your work is everything

To any male photographers, you must ensure you’re advocates for the models you work with. To every model who feels they need to get the photograph the photographer wants. You have every reason and right to say no if it doesn’t feel right. If you want to shoot the way I do, if you want women to trust you, if you want the opportunity to create art where women are involved, as a man to understand that there are consequences. You need to check your ego, collaborate, listen and learn.

To be a woman means being aware that sexualised violence can be committed against you at any second. I think with the photographs I take, whilst I contextual them as art, how others view them is different. How I photograph could affect a woman’s career, how people talk about her, and how she’s viewed in society at large. With my work, there are consequences, and any male photographer should know that there is a context to every image they take.

There is a contextual reason that goes deeper than women are just more comfortable shooting with other women. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a woman who has refused to take an image offline because it is causing distress. I don’t believe female photographers have their work contextualised as a conquest.

To this day, I get asked by many men how many of the models I have slept with; I get asked how I don’t take advantage of the woman I work with because somehow that must be hard. A horrifying amount of language used perpetrates violence against women that is hardly new or unusual. This is a terrifying reminder that the safety of the people I work with does not end after I press the shutter button.

I’ve had women beg me to take photos down; in the past, I would hesitate because I was concerned about how it made me look, a younger version of me, and felt like I had done something wrong. Older now, I see it as a way of seeking safety.

I’ve gone to bed and woken up to five messages from models in a similar tone: “please, please, please take those down; I love them, but my boyfriend is very uncomfortable with those being online and asked me to have them removed”. I’ve had a father whose daughter was a close friend threaten to make my life hell, and a month later, he was fired from his job for assaulting his wife. I cannot imagine the hell she would have gone through growing up with a man who still sees his daughter as an object to control.

I don’t say this lightly; there are consequences. If you are a man looking to shoot a woman, you need to be aware of unforeseen consequences for the images you take of her. You need to understand you owe them more than just those photos.

You now have a duty of care towards those women that extends to how those photos are disseminated; you owe them a duty of care towards how you contextualise your work. You have to go to bat for them; you have to make sure that they are looked after, not just the day you shot those images, but the days, weeks and years after.

I think about this a lot, mainly because many of the women I’m close to having opened up to me about their experiences. I am grateful for each of you, because, without the courage to speak up, I wouldn’t be writing this, and I wouldn’t be able to be an advocate, I know it isn’t easy, I know it must have taken courage, and I am so sorry that you’ve had to be the teachers. Mainly because I look to elevate those I work with; there are times when I will have to cut down the things I’ve built to be beautiful because the safety of those around me is important to the work.

I know I won’t get it right every time, but I know I’m learning; I know that by talking openly about this stuff, I make many men uncomfortable. It’s not enough to be sweet and charming and make someone comfortable and safe when they are with you. It’s everything else; it’s the times that you are not there, that you need to be willing to tear down the beautiful things you’ve built together to save them; you must sacrifice your work. It is no longer yours the moment you point your camera in their direction because if you don’t, instead, you are offering them; you are saying the violence committed against the people in your photographs is ok.

And in doing so, you are becoming the very monster that women hoped you wouldn’t, you are perpetuating this culture of violence.