Bouveresse, Clara – The Bell Bookshop

Women Photographers: Contemporaries

Emma — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the rise of feminism, women photographers conquered the mainstream, with an increasingly commodified art world now viewing them simply as photographers and not merely a novelty or subcategory. Some women combined their photography practice with video, installations and other media, while others used the camera as a tool for questioning the concept of imagemaking itself, or for opening a fruitiful dialogue with subjects, instead of imposing an outside viewpoint. A rising awareness of environmental concerns went hand in hand with the issues of globalization and diversity.

Women Photographers: Pioneers

Emma — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Women began working as photographers in the second half of the 19th century, a time when the rules of the medium had not yet been codified and experimentation was the order of the day. Some opened their own studios, patenting their own equipment and carving out a place for themselves in this new artistic field, while others were obliged to work anonymously or under pseudonyms. As the 20th century dawned, women embraced genres ranging from pictorialist soft focus to documentary realism and surrealist photomanipulation, fearlessly exploring the boundaries of photographic possibility.