Why I’m done working with female clients
Disclaimer: I’m a female. And I love women, but as clients, I’m done. Here’s why…
Years ago, trying to make ends meet as a struggling filmmaker I would take odd gigs shooting headshots for actors. I had a healthy mix of clients, from all backgrounds, and worked equally with both men and women. Unfortunately, while the work was overall rewarding, it was mostly overshadowed by what I remember as a daunting dread. Namely, the sheer exhaustion it took to work with female clients. Just the female clients, yes. Because unlike men, one noticeable difference with them was that they were always apologizing.
I’ve since heard this sentiment echoed from other headshot photographers. Sure, there’s something about the intimacy, the close ups required from this particular type of work that allows an individual to be extra self-critical. But without fail, whenever a female client would come into the studio, I almost always heard apologies. About her body, mostly. How tired she looked (those bags!); or how fat she felt (that lunch!); how bloated (that juice!); and usually too, how bad her skin was (wrong time of the month!). Without fail, the list of excuses was as creative as it was exhaustive.
Part of my job as a photographer has always been to reassure people sitting in front of the camera. I get it; it can feel damn vulnerable sitting there with a lens barreling down your face. It takes most people years to get used to that feeling. But the worst part wasn’t those sessions in the studio, camera in hand, trying to convince women they were beautiful, and worthy, and radiant — not that that wasn’t exhausting, no. Just that it turned out there was an even more tiring bit, and that would always come next. Here I’m talking about the feedback from the final edits. That’s the point when apologies turned into disdain. Disdain about this picture, their nose! Or that, there, a hair out of place!
When I think back on it, I cannot remember a single instance where a male client went through the same cycle of apology-disdain in those days. Not one. Either way, I vowed to stay away from headshot photography when I was finally able to move up in my career.
Fast forward nearly 6 years later. I’m now doing things I could have only dreamed of all those years ago. I now run my own production company and focus my talents on visual storytelling. More specifically, I help clients tell their stories on camera. And I love it! The work combines two of my favourite passions: story and visuals. Win, win.
As a mostly, usually one-woman team, I shoot, edit, sometimes even direct and script videos for badass people. I’m talking about entrepreneurs, musicians, poets, dreamers… all kinds of people that have a serious mission to impact the world they live in and hopefully make it that much better for us all.
Of late, by mere chance a large chunk of my clients have been women. All individuals who are highly driven, intelligent, and who I even personally respect. And yet suddenly, I’m starting to feel like I did all those years ago: exhausted. Because it appears to me I’m stuck in the middle of the same twisted psychological battle we, this gender, seem to be particularly diseased with.
Once again, before and during shoot flattery is a must. Re-affirmation of worthiness, definitely! Then, in the edit, repeat. You look great! You are beautiful! Ad nauseum.
It’s come to a point that I now advise female clients — and only female clients — to show their videos to trusted friends for honest feedback (like, ‘do I look ugly?’) BEFORE coming back with feedback and review notes. Why? Because I can almost guarantee that without some much needed perspective they will come back saying something about their nose, their skin, their voice, or the ugly shirt they decided to wear that day.
Now, I know we are all self-critical to a certain extent. And in the age of social media especially, I can only imagine this complex has gotten worse. The way we curate images of ourselves and drip feed what we wish the world to see us as. (As if we had any control over that in the first place.) It is indeed a toxic breed of worry particularly accentuated in the modern age. And as a woman of this modern age myself, I admittedly can be as highly irrational as any one of my sisters. In fact, I’m just as guilty. I’ve done it too; balked at pictures of myself; Wanted so badly to have certain public pictures of me not posted, or distributed. But ironically, in having had to deal with this very issue in other women, it’s forced me to open my eyes. Two incidents in particular really hit this lesson home.
The first was a black-and-white picture a photographer took of me years ago. While technically the picture was great, I hated it! The way it made my freckles stand out. The way it showed the beginnings of a forehead wrinkle. Urgh. Safe to say, when the picture was published I retreated into the depths of inner yuckiness. I never wanted to see that shot again. But then, by chance a few years later I somehow stumbled across it. This time though, my reaction was markedly different. This time? I was wowed. Yes, wowed by this human who was me. Who was captured so authentically, so candidly. Her freckles, that wee forehead wrinkle. And I even thought then: this may be one of the strongest pictures ever taken of me. Time, it seems, had the fortune of creating some much needed perspective I wasn’t able to see at first.
The second incident that has radically changed how I approach self-critique is a recent experiment I did. Funny enough, it involved a similar situation as before. Another photographer took yet another ‘awful’ picture of me. I remember saying ‘thank you’ when really I wanted to ask how he got paid as a working photographer? But then, knowing what I had learned from the previous incident, I decided to try something out. Instead of rejecting this picture, I would give it a chance and see just how bad (or not) it really was. I vowed that whenever someone asked for a picture of me — for a write up or bio or what have you — I would send them three very different pictures. Three options for them to choose from. And one of those options would have to be this much detested picture I’d just acquired.
Here’s the shocking thing. I’ve now tried this experiment out a few times. And the result? As fate would laugh, that much detested picture! And yes, every single time. Every single time that picture I hated so much initially was being chosen to represent me. Meaning, other people connected to her. Other people saw something in her. Which begs the question: what was I not seeing?
Let me extend that question to women generally: What are we all not seeing as worthy about ourselves? What are we not seeing as beautiful? And why can we not stop making excuses for her, that woman staring back at us?
If I could plead one thing to all my female clients, it would be this: Let her be. Please.
Because, to be honest I’m tired of trying to convince her that she is worthy.
I’m tired of defending her body.
I’m tired of protecting her worth.
I’m tired of reducing her story to one told by the inadequate perceptions of her self.
Most of all, I’m tired of working for her, when she’s not even working for herself.
