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Presents

Rebel Justice Podcasts : Episode 8: Capturing Personality in a Portrait 

Description:

Clare Barstowe speaks to some of the photographers and subjects in our  Someone’s Daughter campaign, sharing their experiences  on how they worked and supported each other during the photo shoot. 

Someone’s Daughter is a visual portal that gives the viewer access to the reality of the criminal justice system, which is more punitive and harmful towards women. 

Episode 8 focuses on women photographers Felicity Crawshawe, Emily Garthwaite, Kristina Varaksina and portrait subject Jennifer Joseph. The beginning of the podcast focuses on making a subject comfortable when they were all meeting for the first time. They spoke about duty of  care and letting  the subject lead the way in a photoshoot. That way, the subject feels comfortable and relaxed, so both the subject and photographer can both tell a story.

Portrait subject Jennifer Joseph, highlights the issues women  face in the criminal justice system. Jennifer tells her experience of being incarcerated and how women face many burdens once out of the system that formerly incarcerated men do not face. 

Felicity, Emily, Kristina  and Jennifer all share how essential it is to platform minority groups of women, especially photography. Photographer Emily explains  how women are afraid to speak up and prove their worth in this industry so that when she has the chance, she tries as hard as possible to make sure all women can be at a photoshoot or  an art gallery. The conversation concludes with encouragement , that all photographers  should go out and explore the world because people have amazing stories to tell.

Highlights and Minutes 

Felicity, Emily, and Kristina agree that it is significant to get the subject to share her stories and form a connection on and off camera (10:47). Emily states, "It will always be tricky if you can't relate, but you can always relate on a human level (12:20).” 

Model Jennifer then talked about her lived experience in the criminal justice system and stated, "I am somebody's daughter, and I have daughters (14:10)." Jennifer explains the difficulties of leaving her daughters as she was incarcerated and how vulnerable it made her feel (15:20). Jennifer mentions, "We are defined by the stories we tell others, and we tell ourselves," and she hopes one day women will not be defined this way (17:20). Kristina mentioned how a woman might not have a support system in their life, so, therefore, seeing an image and story of a woman going through a similar situation could be empowering and make them feel less alone (20:20). 

Jennifer mentions how any platform that steps up to reform the criminal justice system is essential (26:07). Jennifer discusses how women walk away with the more immense burden from prison. "If you ask 100 people about prison, 99 of them will tell you about a man, none of them could tell you about women, Yet if a woman is with a man and he gets her into legal trouble, she comes out the worst of it (27:25).” Jennifer talks about how there needs to be a better transition from leaving prison to going back to their communities (30:20).

Felicity, Emily, Kristina, and Jennifer then talk about the importance of mental health and how photography can help mental health (34:10). Kristina discusses how people need to hear these stories people have gone through and feel supported themselves (35:12). Felicity discusses how women photographers need to stand up more for themselves in a male-dominated field (37:47). The conversa

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