Woman Photojournalist - Martha Holmes

 

[Photo by: Martha Holmes, 1947. https://www.life.com/photographer/martha-holmes/]

Name: Martha Holmes

Age: 83

Born: February 7, 1923 [Louisville, Kentucky]

Died: September 19, 2006 [Manhattan]

Martha Holmes was born in Louisville, on February 7, 1923. Her father worked in public relations and her mother worked as a voice coach. She attended the University of Louisville for one year, before was hired as a Photo Lab Assistant at the Louisville Courier Journal. he attended the University of Louisville for one year, before was hired as a Photo Lab Assistant at the Louisville Courier Journal. Two years later Life magazine notice Martha Holmes work on photography, so they recommend on hiring her for the cover of Kentucky Derby. 

Martha Holmes struggles in the male-dominated field because she had to balance between femininity and professionalism for her appearance as a female photojournalist. With photojournalism, she takes pictures of well-known celebrities, like Jackson Pollock, Humphery Bogart, and Lauren Bacall. She was known for her portraits of celebrities, artists, and original civilians.

[Photo by Lynsey Addario, September 2016. https://iphf.org/inductees/lynsey-addario/]

Women faced discrimination on how they been portrays as Submissive, vulnerable object to be taken advantage by male-dominated environment. When female photojournalists start their careers for photography, they start having struggles with gender prejudice, sexual harassment, double standards in the photography industry. According to Yunghi Kim interview, she talks about not only sexism was caused by being discriminated by folks but being debunk the stereotypical impression of minority race from white "men" perspective. Yunghi was determined to showcase her work on photojournalism and films, even when she willing to break boundary of what other people think she is.

[Photo by Yunghi Kim, April 1996. http://www.yunghikim.com/comfort-women/]

In the Lynsey Addario interview, she explains her experience in being sexually harassed by group of men in Afghanistan – along with three unconfirmed photojournalists, assuming all male photojournalists. She describes how there a gap between men and women treatment from Afghanistan, same way how women struggle through gender prejudice and sexism. Which means its display on how aggressive toward women to make them feel fragility vulnerable to facing discrimination in gender – between dominate male and submissive female. Even when they were present in different countries, they would get different treatment than men did - wanting to have double standards with male and female workers. 

[Photo by: Catherine Leroy, December 1967. https://www.blind-magazine.com/news/catherine-leroy-and-the-making-of-a-photojournalist-during-the-vietnam-war/]

However, female photojournalists still manage to get themselves to prove what they are capable of photojournalism, just like one of the first female war correspondent, Catherine Leroy. According to Arnold Drapkins, he said Leroy "had a great news sense and an abiding desire to get where she wants to go", meaning she is willing to capture moments on war she's attending to. Womens can overcome those obstacles by showing their skills in taking photos in different fields – such as Vietnam war, industry, and others.