Storytelling is a powerful tool because it can change perceptions and inspire action—and images are an essential component. As Depression-era American photojournalist and documentarian Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
Unfortunately, finding high-quality and diverse openly licensed images, particularly those of women, is a difficult task for activists and nonprofit organizations. Either they don’t exist or they’re behind expensive paywalls. Thankfully, theWilliam and Flora Hewlett Foundation—one of Creative Commons’ institutional supporters—is making that task easier withImages of Empowerment, a CC-licensed stock photography collection that shares women’s stories from across the world.
Opening access to women’s stories through Images of Empowerment
In 2015, the Hewlett Foundation approached Getty Images to “tell the important story of women’s lives in sub-Saharan Africa through powerful, positive images.” According to Sarah Jane Staats, communications manager for the Hewlett Foundation’s Global Development and Population Program, the Foundation recognized that “…too often the images most available to us in commercial stock photography collections or in the media focus on disaster, poverty, or reinforce outdated gender stereotypes.”
“Nonprofits around the world can access powerful, positive images to help tell the story of their work and why it matters.”
The Foundation decided to publish the images under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license so that “nonprofits around the world can access powerful, positive images to help tell the story of their work and why it matters.” This decision was in line with the Foundation’sopen licensing policy，以及十多年来对CC开放许可和开放教育工作的支持。
By 2017, the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) added photographs from Colombia, Ghana, India, Peru, South Africa, and Thailand showcasing women’s “informal work” (e.g. cleaning homes, collecting recyclables, etc.).In 2018, theDavid and Lucile Packard Foundationbecame a collaborator as well, adding photographs from Bihar, India and from Louisiana and Mississippi in the United States.This year, they added a new collection fromRwanda.
戴维和露西尔·帕卡德基金会的公关经理艾米丽·博斯沃思(Emily Bosworth)表示，这些形象可能会对性别不平等和性别偏见产生深远影响。“我们用来讲述故事的照片很重要。博斯沃思解释说:“图片能迅速与我们的情感联系起来，并给我们留下持久的印象。价格合理、易于获取的高质量图片准确地描绘了妇女和女孩在决策过程中的角色，她们是社区的积极参与者，这在挑战性别刻板印象和强化基于资产的叙事方面具有巨大的力量。”
“我们用来讲述故事的照片很重要。图像会迅速与我们的情绪联系起来，并给我们留下持久的印象。”
Today, the Images of Empowerment collection includes over 2,000 images licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 from acrossColombia,Ghana,India,Kenya,Peru,Rwanda,Senegal,South Africa,Thailand,Uganda, and theUnited States. The images in the collection show women as “active participants in their communities, accessing and providing qualityreproductive healthinformation and services, and advocating forbetter working conditions.”
Now you can search these images more easily through the Images of Empowerment website
Just in time for International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8, the Hewlett Foundation and the Packard Foundationlauncheda dedicated stock photographywebsitefor the Images of Empowerment collection.
用户现在可以很容易地搜索和下载这些图片用于他们的非营利工作，也可以通过详细的说明来识别图片中的个人并提供额外的上下文来了解更多关于每张图片的信息。令人难以置信的是，他们还为每个系列提供了视频，分享摄影师的经验。
Images from the collection have been used by nonprofits across the world for conference materials, research and policy briefs, social media content, and more. Media organizations have also utilized the images, includingThe New York Times,Vox,Time, and theGuardianto explain the impact of certain policy issues (e.g. reproductive health).
Bosworth noted that the images fromBihar, India(photographed by Paula Bronstein) have made a noticeable impact. “By capturing the strength and resilience of women and girls in Bihar,” she wrote, “the images challenge false stereotypes about the role of women and deliver a more accurate message about the remarkable individuals that call this region home.”
Explore the Images of Empowerment collection!
We believe this collection demonstrates how open access can help create a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world through sharing. Please considerdonating to Creative Commonsso that we can continue stewarding the CC licenses and building the open access tools and platforms individuals and organizations, like the Hewlett Foundation, use to share.
