I believe photographers already know how to be filmmakers; they just don't know that they know.
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.
Jessica Dimmock (American documentary photojournalist and filmmaker, 1978-) is a 2005 graduate of the program in documentary photography and photojournalism at the International Center of Photography. She shoots regularly for the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Newsweek, and other U.S. magazines. She has been profiled in New York magazine, Aperture, Photo District News, and the British Journal of Photography. She is a member of VII Photo Agency.
Dimmock began her Ninth Floor project in late 2004 in Manhattan. A drug dealer noticed her camera, approached her on the street, and invited her to take photographs of him. He led her to a building in the Flatiron District, where Dimmock spent eight months photographing the approximately thirty heroin addicts who shared an apartment. In June 2005, the owners of the apartment evicted the addicts, but Dimmock continued to photograph two of the couples for more than two years after the eviction. The project was published as a video and as a book in 2007. Jessica
Dimmock's work focuses on humanistic and intimate storytelling. She is the recipient of numerous international awards for her photography and video work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, three World Press Photo Awards for short films, The Inge Morath Award from Magnum, the F Award for Concerned Photography from Forma and Fabrica, The Infinity Award for Photojournalist of the Year from the International Center of Photography, and The Kodak Award for Best Cinematography at the Hamptons International Film Festival. She is a Sundance Edit and Story Lab Fellow, and her first feature film, The Pearl, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival and was executive produced by Impact Partners.
Her clients include HBO, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Microsoft, The UNFPA, Aperture, Showtime, and PBS. She is the co-director of the Netflix series Flint Town and directed the reboot of Unsolved Mysteries and AppleTV's Home. Dimmock was listed as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine.
I’m really at my best when someone has me in their home, and then I take a picture of them there. I’m a better observer than anything else.
We will continue discussing female names that left their mark on photography and contemporary female photographers who are still emerging. There are many female photographers out there who deserve praise, and we can only hope to cover as many of them as we can. Please follow this space to find out more.
