Photography is not a very inclusive field according to Photo Lucida's critical mass

CatLABS · Nov 12, 2015

Looking at the top 50 of this years critical mass we find:
Less then a third are women.
None are persons of color.

https://medium.com/vantage/critical-mass-top-50-not-one-african-american-6d02b6204bd5

It would be interesting (though not surprising) to read this numbers over the past several years....

blansky · Nov 12, 2015

An interesting thread, but I'm getting deja vu.

Didn't we just do this.

Dinesh · Nov 12, 2015

blansky said:
An interesting thread, but I'm getting deja vu.

Didn't we just do this.

Yep.

winger · Nov 12, 2015

Looking at the submission rules, the jurors would not know the gender or race of the photographer submitting. Therefore, the mix within the winners is completely up to who submitted. NOT THE FAULT OF THE JURORS OR PHOTO LUCIDA.

+1 to Blansky and Dinesh.

Sirius Glass · Nov 12, 2015

Bin thar. Dun dat. Can you play more than one note?

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 12, 2015

The second saddest part here is that the gratuitous inclusion of women in these poking-sticks-in-eyes diatribes is merely a transparently self-serving means to a different end. And thus an especially egregious form of bigotry.

The saddest part?

That it's next to impossible to offer a well-received argument to a group of people suffering from painfully bleeding eyes...

Ken

Sirius Glass · Nov 12, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
The second saddest part here is that the gratuitous inclusion of women in these poking-sticks-in-eyes diatribes is merely a transparently self-serving means to a different end. And thus an especially egregious form of bigotry.

The saddest part?

That it's next to impossible to offer a well-received argument to a group of people suffering from painfully bleeding eyes...

Ken

Nicely said.

The one trick pony has a broken leg.

Gerald C Koch · Nov 12, 2015

To quote the great Yogi, "It's deja vu all over again."

Sirius Glass · Nov 12, 2015

Beating a dead horse.

Dinesh · Nov 12, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLaVsRagMa8

Sirius Glass · Nov 12, 2015

Yes that is one really sick puppy you got there ...

MartinCrabtree · Nov 12, 2015

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............eeerrmmm.........ughhhh.........did someone say something?????

removed account4 · Nov 12, 2015

Dinesh said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLaVsRagMa8

you gotta watch out for those pigeons

HiHoSilver · Nov 12, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
The second saddest part here is that the gratuitous inclusion of women in these poking-sticks-in-eyes diatribes is merely a transparently self-serving means to a different end. And thus an especially egregious form of bigotry.

The saddest part?

That it's next to impossible to offer a well-received argument to a group of people suffering from painfully bleeding eyes...

Ken

Bravo Ken! Its either about traditional photography - or about something else. I'm here for the photography. There are other forums for social justice warriors.

RalphLambrecht · Nov 12, 2015

CatLABS said:
Looking at the top 50 of this years critical mass we find:
Less then a third are women.
None are persons of color.

https://medium.com/vantage/critical-mass-top-50-not-one-african-american-6d02b6204bd5

It would be interesting (though not surprising) to read this numbers over the past several years....

If you stop looking for a divide it will disappear.

Dali · Nov 12, 2015

CatLABS said:
None are persons of color.

They were all transparent?

CatLABS · Nov 12, 2015

RalphLambrecht said:
If you stop looking for a divide it will disappear.

Indeed thats what many self content self declared progressive thinkers in the US do. The result is this sad reality. .

Moving forward - There's an inherent problem when any list of artists is created, and one should always be skeptical of contests like this that aim to "promote the best emerging and mid-career artists working today" yet charge a hefty submission fee (as mentioned above). What this article doesn't touch on is the fact that any and all submission fees often create a barrier for a large number of talented artists, and create and exacerbate the pay-to-play culture that's so rampant in the art world. Not only should we strive for more diversity and inclusivity in group exhibitions, online lists, etc., we should also consider what types of things might stop artists from submitting work to shows and/or putting themselves out there.
The article does raise MANY questions as to how these results came about, none of them have to do with the jurors or what information the submissions include.

Asking these questions is important. All those higher education professionals can now chime in to say how many students of color they have in their photo classes or departments, and why they think they are so under represented in arts, and especially photography.

Ken Nadvornick · Nov 12, 2015

Dali said:
They were all transparent?

Indeed.

I also cannot help but notice that there is no mention of "women" in post 17...

Ken

Theo Sulphate · Nov 13, 2015

CatLABS said:
... What this article doesn't touch on is the fact that any and all submission fees often create a barrier for a large number of talented artists...

These are the entry requirements:

http://www.photolucida.org/critical-mass/entry-details/

Is $75 really a barrier? How much did the camera, film, or SD card cost?

Also, I saw nothing where sex or race was mentioned. It seems to me that the choices were made from the submitted photos and no explicit type of discrimination existed. It seems you are saying the discrimination is implicit, based on the entry fee.

Ok. How about a gallery, school, whatever, just loaning out cameras for a contest and have no entry fee? I wonder if the demographic results would be different.

removed account4 · Nov 13, 2015

CatLABS said:
All those higher education professionals can now chime in to say how many students of color they have in their photo classes or departments, and why they think they are so under represented in arts, and especially photography.

not a higher education professional, nor do i play one on TV but i was a student in the 80s at a liberal arts university
over a 4 years period
about 15.. maybe 18 [ each semester ]
3-4 asian americans
2 women
no african americans
mostly euro/anglo americans or english/european students

this is for photography 2-5 ( advanced )
students shared the classroom worked together and met all at the same time
not sure what hte breakdown was at the SMFA which was an afflilated school

not sure why minorities were under represented, maybe they had different interests or not enough $$ for the materials ?
there were no pre-requisites ( except you use a manual camera and buy your own paper +film )
it wasn't cheap,

people often took photography classes thinking it was a gut/blow off / easy A and after the first couple of classes
they realized it wasn't as easy as they thought.

hi theo

$75 is a lot of money to some folks ..
( it is to me ! ) just as the cost of an apug subscription ( $24 )
is enough of an obstacle to some that they can't afford it.

===

http://www.agora-gallery.com

Xmas · Nov 13, 2015

I'm sorry but they clearly have a biased sample.

They judged people who entered rather than photos on the web, note which would still be biased.

If more fellas entered the probability is more fellas would appear in a random subset.

For me the best picture of the year was taken by a female, the selfie by a female manque, ...

Eg I can get a tea shirt top with it printed on.

Terry Christian · Nov 13, 2015

I think the original article raised the potential issue without jumping to conclusions, and acknowledging the inherent problems with this kind of sample.
If I was really looking for bias among any given group in the photographic world, I'd do a more exhaustive, comprehensive search, looking not only at photo contests and jurors but also photo professionals, educators, galleries, alt-process practicioners, etc, just to gather as large and wide-ranging sample as possible.
But yes, the suggestion that the photo world isn't well served by minority artists is disturbing, and we must do what we can to encourage their voices and foster their development.

CatLABS · Nov 13, 2015

Terry Christian said:
If I was really looking for bias among any given group in the photographic world, I'd do a more exhaustive, comprehensive search, looking not only at photo contests and jurors but also photo professionals, educators, galleries, alt-process practicioners, etc, just to gather as large and wide-ranging sample as possible.

That was discussed in the OP articles here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
Though it was generally decided by APUG (all but entirely male save for one) members there is no bias against women in the art world or elsewhere....

Truzi · Nov 13, 2015

CatLABS said:
That was discussed in the OP articles here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
Though it was generally decided by APUG (all but entirely male save for one) members there is no bias against women in the art world or elsewhere....

Are you certain of the genders of all APUG members, or are you making a few... assumptions?

CatLABS · Nov 13, 2015

Truzi said:
Are you certain of the genders of all APUG members, or are you making a few... assumptions?

By all means - please prove me wrong.

Photography is not a very inclusive field according to Photo Lucida's critical mass

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency