In 2017, a monograph of her two decades of work was published by Mack Books, while later this year a major retrospective, Hannah Starkey<\/a>, <\/em>will open at the Hepworth Gallery<\/strong><\/a> in Yorkshire. Given the scope of her output, she seemed like the perfect photographer to speak to ahead of International Women\u2019s Day (8 March).<\/p>\n Talking to me from her studio in London, Hannah took the time to explain what it is about this lifelong career focus that has kept her occupied for so long. \u2018I\u2019d just started working in the mid-to-late \u201990s when I became very aware that I was a young woman in quite a male-dominated industry \u2013 particularly in the commercial sector.<\/p>\n I was sort of aware of how images of women were getting more explicit and specific. I decided to try to forge my way own through by creating a different type of image of women. From my perspective at the time, women were kind of shaped through the male gaze, and I didn\u2019t like the feeling; and I didn\u2019t like the repercussions of it.\u2019<\/p>\n\t\t Untitled, May 1997<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n There has been much written about how men and women might photograph each other differently, and while it\u2019s not something that is necessarily straightforwardly easy to quantify or put into words, it\u2019s Hannah\u2019s belief that generally you can tell who\u2019s behind the lens. \u2018I just kind of read the message differently when it\u2019s a female photographer, I guess.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s kind of a more \u201cexperience\u201d led thing, rather than just projecting how a woman might act or feel. I guess the female eye senses anything that\u2019s tied up in those kind of sexualised images \u2013 the sort of image that\u2019s being used to sell stuff. It gets a bit obvious \u2013 and you start to think there must surely be a different way of selling something.\u2019<\/p>\n Hannah notes that things have changed \u2013 and are continuing to change \u2013 in the time that she has been working, with a continual evolution in both how women are represented and the access women have to make those representations themselves. \u2018When you come into your professional career or your education, you will always have a legacy of what\u2019s gone before you. You tend to want to rebalance or readjust that. So for me, that was all about the representation of women and to try to find a different way.<\/p>\n \u2018I guess from about 2000 onwards, the mainstream media seemed to be very heavily influenced by the language of porn, and there was a while when it became so suffocating. It seemed like the \u201cgo to\u201d way to present women \u2013 it\u2019s not about prudishness or double standards, it\u2019s just that there are many ways to make a woman look attractive but the dominant aesthetic was just this one way.<\/p>\n\t\t Untitled, October 1998<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n Now I think we\u2019re at that point in photography history where we are making a change \u2013 representation is far wider and far more inclusive and I think that\u2019s kind of amazing. I graduated in 1997 and since then I think there\u2019s been a little revolution in female photography. Whether we\u2019d call it instead the \u201cfemale gaze\u201d is another question, but it\u2019s just kept growing.<\/p>\n That said, I still see hyper-feminisation and hyper-sexualisation as being extreme in the mundane and the mainstream \u2013 I have always worried about that becoming normalised\u2026 it\u2019s very hard for women to live in that image culture with attitudes that then play out.\u2019<\/p>\n We live at a time where gender, and comments made about it, are hugely political and often-times controversial. It\u2019s easy to therefore think of photographers like Hannah Starkey as political photographers \u2013 and indeed, she counts herself as such. \u2018When I started there was this real culture of putting down women with the phrase \u201cwimmin\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n It made me feel as a young photographer that this was perhaps a \u201cclub\u201d that wasn\u2019t so welcome to women \u2013 maybe even felt threatened by them and that came out in this casual sexism. My active resistance was to make women my subject matter, and also consider or refer to myself very deliberately as a female photographer with a female perspective.<\/p>\n\t\t Paris mirrors, September 2016<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n There was this culture that would openly laugh at women\u2019s abilities \u2013 it\u2019s so obvious, it\u2019s all about control. At that point, I wanted to say \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m a woman, I think women\u2019s lives are important\u201d and really spend the whole of my life responding with photography to how I experience being female.\u2019<\/p>\n Hannah\u2019s work has a very stylistic aspect to it, but she doesn\u2019t work on \u2018projects\u2019 so much as she sees her whole output as one lifelong catalogue of work on her subject. Characterising that work in one given genre is tricky, because much of it blurs the boundaries between street, portraiture, documentary, fashion and fine art.<\/p>\n One thread which runs throughout however is the purposeful construction of the female \u2018character\u2019, done deliberately in order for the viewer to project themselves into the narrative. \u2018Photography\u2019s really interesting in that it\u2019s silent and still. You have to do most of the work yourself when the narrative is ambiguous.<\/p>\n Your biases \u2013 even unconscious ones \u2013 can tell you as much about yourself as it does the subject. That\u2019s something I\u2019m really interested in \u2013 how people read images. It\u2019s also intriguing in an age where the moving image is so easily created that it\u2019s stills photography which remains so prevalent. Our relationship with it is really amazing \u2013 it can make us feel good, or it can make us feel shit about ourselves.<\/p>\n\t\t Untitled, September 2006<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n My photographs are attempting to set up that kind of critical engagement. My hope is that even if you see one of my images, you might be enticed enough to look at more, or read what they\u2019re about, or just try and figure out that image and its relationship to you.\u2019<\/p>\n The women in Hannah\u2019s pictures are sometimes actors, hired specifically to create a certain look; but just as often, they are people she has found while out and about who happened to have the right look. If the image has been inspired by a particular location, she may also just head there and hope to find the right character. As a woman photographing other women, there is arguably a different dynamic at play than when genders are mixed.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve been asked about this for 25 years,\u2019 she laughs when I raise the thought. \u2018My answer about whether it\u2019s easier, or at least different, is absolutely yes. At first maybe it was kind of a novelty \u2013 there were a lot fewer female photographers around. But you can also use sexist notions to your advantage.<\/p>\n I realised that often women are not taken as seriously as photographers, and are often dismissed. I found as a woman going into situations or approaching people on the street, that was a massive advantage \u2013 I loved that secret superpower I felt I had, I felt as a woman I could get in anywhere.<\/p>\n\t\t Geraldine and the Stag, Paris, December 2016<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n Being female is perceived as less threatening \u2013 and that makes my job easier. I also think this has played out recently in documentary and war photography. When it\u2019s from a female perspective, you get quite a different focus on different subjects \u2013 I think it\u2019s been amazingly good for photojournalism.\u2019<\/p>\n As someone who is keen to stay as low-key as possible, Hannah keeps her equipment to a minimum \u2013 usually carrying just a camera and a reflector. She now works primarily with a medium format digital camera (a Pentax), something she describes as a workhorse, and a necessity for creating the kind of large-scale prints that she is known for.<\/p>\n That said, she\u2019s also used a 10×8 bellows camera for some pieces, something she loves for its simplicity, but which falls down for being prohibitively expensive. \u2018It has a different quality of colour and merging of tone than digital,\u2019 she says. \u2018Digital is very different \u2013 there\u2019s almost no point comparing them. I love digital because it gets you into all sorts of interesting places and areas, like Photoshop.\u2019<\/p>\n Digital manipulation is of course ubiquitous in modern photography, and it\u2019s something which Hannah has used when necessary \u2013 some of her work is openly \u2018constructed\u2019. But it\u2019s interesting to contrast that idea with the fact that it\u2019s the negative aspects of manipulation which add to the problems surrounding the representation of women and girls.<\/p>\n As a mother to two young women \u2013 her daughters are 19 and 20 \u2013 she\u2019s seen first-hand what excessive retouching can do and also feels a responsibility to address that, or at the very least to present alternatives. \u2018It can be a really confusing time growing up, trying to figure out your identity.<\/p>\n\t\t Untitled, March 2002<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n When you\u2019re constantly being bombarded with images that show perfection, that can make it even harder. At 50, I know how to protect myself from those images but when you\u2019re brand new and thinking these images are normal, that kind of takes its toll. It\u2019s very tough for girls to live up to expectations in a world that has already been pornographised and they themselves have been objectified from about the age of 12 \u2013 if not younger.<\/p>\n As my girls were growing up, I tried to educate them. I showed my ten-year-old daughter and explained how things had been changed, but the image was so powerful that even though she clearly realised all this, she\u2019d still say \u201cyeah but she looks good though doesn\u2019t she?\u201d Yes \u2013 but she also doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n Now you also have the proliferation of filters on platforms like Instagram, and it makes you question where our ideals of beauty are coming from. Over the years I\u2019ve noticed that it\u2019s difficult making work about women because it gets ghettoised very quickly either into the feminist camp or dismissed because of the female subject matter. Working against all of these attitudes is what pushes me.\u2019<\/p>\n The first major retrospective of Hannah\u2019s career is due to take place from October at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Hannah doesn\u2019t actively seek out exhibitions or books projects and is satisfied that it\u2019s taken 25 years to get to this point. \u2018I think the work finds its place in the world.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not proactive in that way. If you build a good body of work and you\u2019re lucky, maybe the right person sees it at the right time. I\u2019m quite happy to wait a whole career for that so that I don\u2019t feel any pressure to produce. I feel like I\u2019m on my own path with my own agenda \u2013 and when you\u2019ve been thinking about the same issue for 25 years you can be pretty sure you\u2019re doing the right thing.\u2019<\/p>\n\t\t Photographs 1997-2017 by Hannah Starkey<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n The exhibition, Hannah Starkey<\/a><\/em>, will run at The Hepworth<\/strong>, Wakefield, from 20 October 2022 until 30 April 2023<\/strong>. For more information, visit hepworthwakefield.org<\/a>. Photographs 1997-2017<\/em>, by Hannah Starkey is published by Mack Books, RRP \u00a340, ISBN: 9781912339198<\/p>\n Born in Belfast, Hannah Starkey is based in London. Specialising in staged portraits of women, her work has been exhibited several times. In 2019, she was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best photography exhibitions to see in 2022<\/a><\/p>\n Celebrating one of the greatest women documentary photographers <\/a><\/p>\n![\"woman](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00108-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"girl](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00107-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"portrait](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00836-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"pregnant](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00115-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"silhouette](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00839-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\tOpen construction<\/h3>\n
![\"woman](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MP-STARH-00110-A-300.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"hannah](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/hannah_Starkey_bookcover-300x336.jpg\")
<\/a>\t\t\t![\"hannah](\"https:\/\/other.kelsey.host\/amateurphotographer\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Hannah-Starkey-Portrait-1-300x311.jpg\")
<\/a>\n
\n\nRelated Articles:<\/h3>\n