Deep Dive: Influencers, Artists, and Photography

Men are photographers and artists; women are influencers

Underhanded. Vapid. Exploitive. Even the infinitive “to influence” has ugly connotations— to change someone’s mind, without them knowing.

The word influencer has taken on the connotations of a vapid beauty blogger, someone who uses social media for their own gain. Occasionally (and often by men) it’s used derogatorily to expressly belittle women artists with social media followings.

Think specifically in the outdoor photography community:

“We don’t need influencers like you ruining Lake Superior for everyone” (actual comment I received)

The tendency for women travel photographers to be called “trust fund babies”, contrasted with the tendency of their male counterparts to be viewed simply as respected photographers (see screenshot below, thank you Brenden for illustrating my point so beautifully)

The tendency for women to be dismissed as competent outdoors people by virtue of the photos or type of photos they choose to post on social media.

This is a dm I received from a man (Brenden) attempting to justify his (unsolicited) opinion on why the work of women photographers is less valuable than the work of men, and why male photographers are more legitimate.

It’s a little hard to write about and quantify the degree to which sexism in the outdoor/photography industry is still pervasive. Attempts to document and talk about it are often met with objections (from men, generally but not always) to “spread positivity” and “share the positive stuff” and “don’t dwell on the haters”. While on a surface level the message to ignore spiteful comments may seem helpful, what it actually does is sweep the pervasive problem of undervaluing women’s art under the rug.

Artist Angela Ligouri recently spoke about an encounter she had with a group of people (including women) who videotaped and made fun of her for posing for a photo The point is not that a woman was part of videotaping, but that being videotaped and ridiculed like this rarely happens to male photographers. This type of ridicule is however, fairly common for women.

Artist and Blogger @miss.rover recently shared a satirical video responding to some of the gross comments she’d received from men only to be met by more men in the comments telling her it was petty to share about “negativity” and calling her immature.

It seems like any attempt to document, speak about, or share about the regular undervaluing of women’s art is met with well intentioned people saying “we don’t want to hear that”. If you talk about the issue you’re petty; you are immature, dwelling on the negative.

The don’t talk about the problem attitude only exacerbates the issue itself:

Women’s voices, their art, and their images are valued less than men’s. The liberal use of the word “influencer” for women artists compared to the term’s comparatively rare use among men is a symptom of that larger ingrained bias.

I want to take a moment to recognize that the voices of women who are transgender and people who are nonbinary are often left out of the conversation entirely, and if we want to talk about making the outdoors a safe and welcoming space for women, we need to make it a safe and welcoming space for all women.

Influencer VS Commercial Photographer

Commercial photography is photography used to promote and market products and services. In general, commercial photographers are compensated for their time, their expertise and equipment, as well as the rights to use and profit from the images they created. Most men are able to successfully and seamlessly identify as a commercial photographer and charge accordingly (anecdotal; everyone has some degree of trouble breaking into this competitive industry).

By this definition, a paid social media post is a form of commercial photography— most brands request the rights to use and profit from images created outside of the paid social media post. The biggest difference between commercial photography and a paid social media post is that in addition to time, expertise and equipment, and image rights, the photographer should also be compensated for ad space on their feed, time writing and composing a post, and attaching their name and reputation to a brand.

A paid social media post is more work, higher commitment from the photographer or artist, and takes on risk of reputation in a way that traditional commercial photography doesn’t; as a result paid social media posts and partnerships can (and should but don’t always; see my declined pitch folder) pay pretty well. Ultimately, the paid post is either ad space and commercial photography, or it is commissioned art.

*I want to note that this is not about or in reference to in any way current or previous brand partners I have worked with, rather pitches I have received and declined and the tone of the industry generally*

When the word “influencing” is attached, the value of the art seems to decrease.

Typically, a commercial photographer will charge between $100-$400 per an hour. When the word influencer is added to that contract the value changes, especially for smaller creators. Industry standard for influencer contracts is more or less a base fee of $100 per 10k followers, plus $100 for usage rights, plus a general photography fee subject to increase base on scope of project and experience. You can find a useful guide for setting rates here.

At the same time, shooting 3-7 photos for one social media post generally takes 2-3 hours, often more with travel time; editing takes another 2 hours, formatting a post, researching trends, writing copy, responding to comments, and promoting said post can take another 1-2 hours. When it’s all said and done, time spend can run as high as 10 hours for one social media post and the associated photography.

Part of the devaluing of the photographer is on marketing language in the industry; it is often framed as an influencer can get you name recognition, brand awareness, and exposure, but a brand advocate (satisfied customer) is what actually drives sales. The general tone towards influencers of marketers tends to be skeptic at best. What this article and similar articles miss by miles is that it’s on brands themselves to drive sales; paid ads with artists can only inspire link clicks and introduce people to your brand; the selling is still on you.

Influencer contacts tend to include the same language and rights to image usage as commercial photography projects, but involve less pay for more work, particularly for smaller niche artists.

Brands and marketers seem to reach out artists, photographers, and writers with social media followings, and reframe them as influencers because the term itself cheapens the art they are seeking. And this reframing happens markedly more to women than to men.

Survey results:

When asked have you been called an “influencer” rather than an artist or photographer:

Men: 33.3% said yes, 67.7 % said no

Women: 85.2% said yes, 14.8% said no

Note that these stats come from an instagram poll and are subject to response bias. The men had 50 total responses while women had 40 total responses. While not necessarily a large sample size, 90 photographers surveyed is not irrelevant.

I went in and manually filtered the stats, discounting votes from people with private accounts (because they could not be considered an influencer in this context voting from that account), and people who’s accounts are personal and not photography based (ie, my brother and his friends, or people who went through clearly just clicking to click). 

One note that I will not be elaborating on for brevity’s sake: there are lots of different types of photographers. Many of the women who said they have not ever been called an influencer do not post photos like the one above and are rather landscape photographers. What I find particularly interesting (and this specific image was not part of any commercial photography project) is that many people identify women posting images like this— with themselves featured, products featured, in the outdoors, being photographed—as influencing or even “fake outdoorsy”. Men often share similar images of people interacting with the outdoors. These images are more often and easily labeled as art or commercial photography. A good example of this is the difference in treatment of photographer Renee Hahnel and her husband Matthew Hahnel.

How do we feel about the word “influencer”?

While the question posed specifically asked “how do you feel about the word influencer being applied to you”, it seems many people (see below) were responding to how they felt about the word generally. This is an important distinction as while many people may feel generally positive about influencers and the word, they might feel less so when the word is applied by others to them, their art and their business, which is what the question asked participants to consider. 

Meanwhile, just 26% of people have positive associations with the world influencer. A larger, 74% have negative associations with the word.

First off, thank you for your responses! I got a lot of good ones, and a lot of people had similar thoughts: I am going to highlight just a few responses for brevity’s sake.

• “Hate the word. It makes it sound like my work/interests aren’t real, valued, or respected”

• “I also don’t see photographers as influencers, I see them as artists. Influencers get people to buy other people’s stuff that they’ve typically been gifted for free”

• “I perceive it as devaluing entrepreneurship when someone is mislabeled as an influencer”

• “I do think it can be in a positive light; someone sharing their recommendations”

Several more responses (4) said that it depends how the word is used. 

Three responses, interestingly, claimed that people who use social media in an influencer-like fashion cannot be artists. I’m discounting these answers simply because the question was neither “define art” or “tell me why I’m not an artist”, rather “how do you feel about the word influencer being applied to you”.

It’s important to note that the person creating art gets to define whether or not they’re an artist and claim the term; no one else. That being said, this touches on an important reality for a lot of artists:

In order for younger people to break into the art world, they have to be social media savvy. They have to be present on multiple platforms, and creating all the time, promoting themselves, and okay with publishing art that is imperfect in order to stay relevant, and that can be exhausting. 

This is a super interesting topic; the impact of social media on art and potential negative impacts on artists, and I will be coming back to it at a later date with better examples and hopefully some actual statistics. 

On a personal note, it’s pretty exhausting to constantly be told I’m not an artist because a stranger has decided I use social media too much. It’s exhausting to feel like I have to lay my credentials bare constantly to be taken seriously. 

Men do not get messages insinuating they aren’t artists. Unfortunately, a lot of other women artists and myself get these patently unoriginal messages weekly.

Bottom line: you get to define your own art.

Calling artists “influencers” is a way to devalue their art, reducing it to a marketing tool. If we start calling women artists artists instead of influencers, we’ll have to pay them more too.

But no one— not a brand, not a keyboard warrior with too much time on his hands— gets to define who you are and your art. Only you get to define that.

And your art has value outside of ad space.