Author Archives: Catherine Kirkpatrick
30 For 30: Reaching Out
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.
A few years back, PWP member Andy Mars read an article about how children who’d had their picture taken by a professional photographer were more likely to be adopted than those who hadn’t. Realizing the good photography could do in the world, she began the PWP Community Service initiative.
PWP-WIN mentoring student photographing his mother
Each year the committee would choose a deserving nonprofit to help with the gift of creative photography. The first organization selected was historic University Settlement House, founded in 1886 to help immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side.
PWP Community Service Poster
The second organization the Community Service Committee worked with was Learning Leaders, an effort that culminated with images by the PWP photographers displayed in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum. When PWP began working with Women In Need (WIN), it not only photographed their events, but developed a mentoring program to teach photography to some of the children and their mothers.
PWP Community Service photographers working with WIN children
PWP-WIN student work exploring different angles and perspectives
PWP-WIN student pet portraits
PWP-WIN mentoring student
– Catherine Kirkpatrick
*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University
Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks
30 For 30: Continuity Through Change
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.
PWP speaker schedules for the 1981-82 season
PWP meetings were modeled on the consciousness raising groups of Women’s Lib. The first ones were held in apartments, then at Photographics Unlimited, Eastman Kodak, the Photo District Gallery, Pratt School of Professional Studies, St. Paul the Apostle Church, and now at the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
1988 PWP Newsletter recounting Raeanne Rubinstein’s talk
Through changes of location and vast changes in the field, each month from September through June, PWP meets to conduct business and hear a prominent photographer, usually a woman, speak about their life and art. Early speakers included Lilo Raymond, Ruth Orkin, Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Via Wynroth, Patt Blue, and Maggie Sherwood of the Floating Foundation of Photography.
PWP Newsletter featuring a talk by Eva Rubinstein
Recent luminaries include Elinor Carucci, Arlene Gottfried, Flo Fox, and Susan Meiselas who inspired all present with their words and pictures. (Note: Susan Meiselas was one of the photographers in the 1975 FIT exhibition Breadth of Vision from which PWP emerged.)
Arlene Gottfried presenting her work at PWP in 2009
Meetings are casual and congenial, allowing members and guests to interact with some of the legends of photography.
Arlene Gottfried signing books for PWP members in 2009
– Catherine Kirkpatrick
*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University
Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks
30 For 30: Honoring the Upcoming
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.
Early PWP Student Award winners (clockwise fr upper left: ©M. Tayeh, ©A Arthurs, ©M. Tayeh (2), ©B. Oshodi, ©L. Opoku
In 2005, under President Fran Dickson, PWP developed a Student Awards program to encourage and support young women interested in photography. “Not having a physical location,” she wrote, “we decided to offer cash awards to young women photographers….The program started with junior and seniors in NYC schools and soon expanded to all high school students in the New York metropolitan area.”
Though the development of camera phones allowed for constant casual snaps, the PWP Student Awards helped focus the young photographers’ attention, and gave them the chance, often for the first time, to see their work on a gallery wall.
PWP Student Award winners 2012 (©D. Rubin, ©C. Noskova, ©M. Greenwald)
Many of the early images were black-and-white, but soon exploded into vivid color:
2013 PWP Student Award winning images (©Ana Jaco, ©Ally Hand, ©Ana Jaco)
2013 PWP Student Award winning images (©Ana Jaco, ©Ally Hand, ©Ana Jaco)
The reception was always a joyous occasion, filled with pride on the part of the young photographers and their teachers.
PWP Student Awards Ceremony ©Andy Mars
Poster for PWP Student Awards (includes images ©Robin Craig & ©Andy Mars)
– Catherine Kirkpatrick
*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University
Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks
30 For 30: PWP Goes Live!
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far photography, women, and the world have come since 1975.
1975 was the founding year not only for PWP, but also for Microsoft and Apple Computer. At the time, most people couldn’t imagine how digital technology would change not only the way they took pictures, but the way they lived. In PWP’s earliest days ads, memos, and publications were done on paper. But in 1999, Babs Armour led an effort to create a website that would make the organization accessible from anywhere in the world. The first version of pwponline.org launched in 2000:
- pwponline.org 10/13/2000, courtesy of waybackmachine.org
It featured information about the organization’s history and how to join, plus a directory where each member could upload a single image. It was detailed in a PWP magazine:
- PWP article about the development of its website
The Internet evolved quickly, and around 2008-2009, the PWP website was revised under the supervision of Jackie Neale. It provided a content management system allowing directors to list and edit their own events, featured a rotating “film strip” of member images, as well as an individual portfolio area and, for the first time, a blog:
- pwponline.org 1/24/11, courtesy of waybackmachine.org
The most recent version was developed by a committee led by PWP president, Fredda Gordon, with an assist from former president, Maddi Ring. It features super easy content management, and individual portfolio space where each member can upload 200 images.
- pwponline.org 12/12/15, courtesy of waybackmachine.org
Query letters, like the ones sent to PWP in the 1970s and 80s, belong to the past.
– Catherine Kirkpatrick
*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University
Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks
30 For 30: The Great Change Sweeps In
To celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re featuring items from the PWP Archives* each day on this blog. In looking back, we see not only where we started, but how far women, photography, and the world have come since 1975.
PWP was born in an analogue world in 1975. There was no online anything, so word of the organization was spread by publications printed on paper:
Early 1980s ad rates for “The PWP Times”
In those publications were ads for film services and darkroom facilities:
Ad for Dial-A-Darkroom in a PWP publication
But the world was changing fast. Here is an ad for a computer workshop at Photographics Unlimited, the darkroom complex where PWP held meetings in the early 1980s:
Ad for a computer workshop at Photographics Unlimited
The pace of technological accelerated rapidly in photography and the world at large. In 1998, PWP invited Alan D. Coleman, photo critic of the Village Voice, to speak about the impact of techonology. The lecture took place in the Kate Murphy Amphitheatre of the Fashion Institute of Technology:
In 1998 Alan D. Coleman spoke about digital technology
Computers and software began appearing in PWP class offerings. In 2002, it held a workshop on Photoshop at FIT:
2002 PWP computer workshop at FIT
These classes would expand in the 2000s to include instruction on personal websites, book design and publishing, social media and blogging as the digital bang opened new doors for photographers.
– Catherine Kirkpatrick
*The PWP Archives were acquired by the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library of Emory University
Links to all the 30 For 30 Women’s History Month blogs:
Help Me Please! Hopelessly Waiting…
Exhibition and Anger
Spreading the Word
Early Ads On Paper
Cards and Letters
A Lady, a Truck, a Singing Dog
Women of Vision
A Show of Their Own
Taking It To the Street
Sisters of Sister Cities
Sold!
Education and More
Face of a Changing City
Digital Enabling
Expanding Walls and Other Possibilities
A Wonderful Life–Lady Style
Branding–the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Great Change Sweeps In
PWP Goes Live!
Honoring the Upcoming
Continuity Through Change
Reaching Out
Eye a Woman Naked
Rapidly Multiplying Alternative Options
Women In the World, As Themselves
Kudos!
Friends Who Overcame and Inspired
Reversing the Gaze
Photography and More
Chicks Telling It Like It Is
Looking Back With Thanks