Stereotypes, especially negative ones, shape and constrain what we can do and who we can be. Feminists are of a group that is often stereotyped. To challenge those stereotypes and to reveal the breadth of who feminist economists are, I photographed members of the International Association for Feminist Economics in New Paltz, NY for one day, during the June 2018 conference and again in Glasgow in June 2019. This series is from those days of work.
Portraits depend on a co-constructed relationship between the subject and photographer. Photographs capture a fleeting moment of the myriad thoughts and facial expressions a person experiences in any given day. And that is what makes this work challenging and inevitably an intimate experience. I ask myself, who is the person I front of me? How can I draw them out so they are comfortable enough to share their internal, rather than performative, self?
Typically when doing portraits, I ask subjects to make eye contact with me, and I don't encourage smiles, except for perhaps a Mona Lisa smile. True to their feminist spirit, the people I photographed in New Paltz and Glasgow chose to reveal themselves according to their own criteria, not mine.
This array of images reveals a wide diversity of human beings, who nevertheless share a similar goal of ensuring that all people—regardless of their class, race, citizenship status, or gender—are able to provide for themselves and their families with dignity and economic security.
Portraits depend on a co-constructed relationship between the subject and photographer. Photographs capture a fleeting moment of the myriad thoughts and facial expressions a person experiences in any given day. And that is what makes this work challenging and inevitably an intimate experience. I ask myself, who is the person I front of me? How can I draw them out so they are comfortable enough to share their internal, rather than performative, self?
Typically when doing portraits, I ask subjects to make eye contact with me, and I don't encourage smiles, except for perhaps a Mona Lisa smile. True to their feminist spirit, the people I photographed in New Paltz and Glasgow chose to reveal themselves according to their own criteria, not mine.
This array of images reveals a wide diversity of human beings, who nevertheless share a similar goal of ensuring that all people—regardless of their class, race, citizenship status, or gender—are able to provide for themselves and their families with dignity and economic security.