[Female gaze] Pamela Hanson talks about her thirty-year career and the path she carved as a woman in a male-dominated industry

Welcome to this eighth episode of the new Dior Talks series ‘The Female Gaze’. With the term developed in response to the writings of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, this podcast series will explore how the work of the female photographers and creatives collaborating with Dior offers a radically new and progressive image of women. In this episode, series host Charlotte Jansen, a British journalist and author, talks to Pamela Hanson, a major figure in the world of fashion photography. She has always formed a unique bond with her subjects and has turned her lens on the major figures of the fashion world, building a formidable body of work in the editorial, advertising and portraiture spheres. Pamela Hanson was born in London and grew up in Geneva. She originally moved to the USA to study fine arts at the University of Colorado and has lived and worked in New York for three decades. Throughout her career she has broken through entrenched gender barriers, working with and photographing generations of key players in the industry. She has seen first-hand the changes and evolutions which have taken place and has worked across media, creating a formidable catalogue of photographic and moving-image work. She has worked with all international editions of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and GQ, among many others, and has photographed and filmed a multitude of campaigns. In 2001, she published Girls, a book featuring over 200 examples of her personal and professional work, following this with Boys in 2006.  In this week’s episode, Charlotte Jansen speaks with Hanson about the position of women in fashion, discussing her how she views the changes which have taken place and whether these changes will prove lasting and meaningful. Hanson set up her first darkroom at the age of 13 and, as such, has been examining her own observations of the world ever since. She discusses her initial interest in art history and her unlikely entrée into the world of fashion. Her long and varied experience provides the backdrop to her trademark personal, intimate relationship with her subjects.