Photography, for me, is just the perfect excuse.
Ever since its invention in the 19th century, photography has been used to document life. At the same time, it focuses on inviting audiences to a rather subjective world while trying to be taken seriously as an art form. Photography has always been considered a male-dominated profession, but luckily, things are changing. Scholars, writers, bloggers, photography students, and enthusiasts have been giving credit to the female pioneers of the field. Most were always standing and/or hiding in the shadows, oblivious to how much they could claim and accomplish. Arguably, the techniques, concepts, and themes female photographers use differ from those of male photographers. At a time when most women were convinced that their place was in the kitchen and certainly not in the dark room, some were struggling to surpass their male counterparts and work towards gaining respect and recognition for their work.
Cristina de Middel (Spanish photographer, 1975-) was born in Alicante and is now based between Mexico and Brazil. She graduated with an M.A. in Photography from the University of Oklahoma in 2000, an M.A. in Fine Arts from the Technical University of Valencia in 2001, and a Postgraduate Degree in Photojournalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2002.
De Middel spent ten years working as a photojournalist at a Spanish newspaper. She left in 2012 to pursue personal projects. She moved away from straight documentary and produced the acclaimed series, The Afronauts (2012). This explored the history of a failed space program in Zambia in the 1960s through staged re-enactments of obscure narratives, challenging the traditional depiction of the African continent. De Middel's project Gentlemen's Club, which began in Rio de Janeiro in 2015 and expanded to every continent around the globe, focuses on prostitution's less documented side: the male clients. Her intimate portraits subvert the paradigms of the status quo to provide new sources of insight and understanding.
The photographer joined Magnum Photos in 2017 and became an associate member in 2019. In 2022, she became a full member of the agency and was voted in to replace Olivia Arthur as the new Magnum president. De Middel investigates photography's ambiguous relationship to truth. Blending documentary and conceptual photographic practices, she plays with reconstructions and archetypes to build a more layered understanding of the subjects she approaches. Working from the premise that mass media is reducing our real understanding of the world we live in, De Middel responds to an urgency to re-imagine tired aesthetic tropes and the insertion of opinion in place of facts.
Yet another notable project, released in 2024, Journey to the Center investigates phenomena related to the migration route through Mexico, with an atmosphere and symbolism inspired by Jules Verne's famous novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. As well as her acclaimed personal projects, the awarded photographer has worked on commission for clients including the Nobel Peace Foundation, Christian Dior, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and FC Barcelona.
Photography has so many rules. That leaves the door open to breaking all of them one after the other and seeing what happens.
We will continue talking about female names that left their mark on photography and about contemporary female photographers who are still emerging. There are a lot of female photographers out there deserving of praise, and we can only hope to cover as many of them as we can. Please follow this space to find out more.
