7. Mar, 2016

Are guys better photographers than women?

This question has been the subject of some debate  Some say yes others say no. Of course women have always been a force in photography, not different from men. Two examples are shown  in the picture at the left.  One is Eva  Besnyö, who most of you probably dont know. Eva was  a Dutch Hungarian photographer well known for her subtle black and white portraits. The other is Robert Capa the famous war action photographer.

Do men and women physically see the world differently?  Some scientists  have reason to believe that women  are better  in discrimination  of  colour details, while  men are better in discrimination details  of   moving  patterns.  Other scientists (including myself) believe that there  is no  real hard evidence so far that men and women  differ in  basic perceptual functions.  But  there could be differences  in the way their brains interpret the visual environment:  the cognitive and emotional  interpretation of images that enter  the brain.  There seems to a consensus  that women in general  have a stronger interest for emotional and men more for technical issues in life.  Boths issues are also important for making  good pictures.  So men in general would be more interested in getting  technical things right, and women more in the emotional  ‘setting’ of the pictures. For example, women might  tend to emphasize  the social, caring and empathical side in their visual scenes.  Men would probably tend to  emphase more the action, confrontational  side. Also because men in general score higher in  ‘thrill seeking’, a personality trait  I wrote something  about in an earlier blog.

The same reasoning would also hold for UW photography. Men of course are over represented  in the world of UW photography.  What about their preferences?  I guess that men would  be more interested  in macro pictures of nudibranches and sea pigmies (their technical  side) and pictures of sharks (their adventurous side) than women.  Women would be more interested in taking pictures  of sea mammals like dolphins and  manatees and their babies (their emotional and social side).  But  men as well as women are  found among  the medal winners in UW photography  of recent years.