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Meet the 2024 Ambassadors!

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We are thrilled to introduce the stunning roster of our 2024 Girls Who Click Ambassadors! Following an intensive selection process, we’ve carefully curated a collection of 16 outstanding New Ambassadors and welcomed 22 Continuing Ambassadors from a pool of over 160 fiercely competitive applicants. These adept photographers and videographers, representing diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, add a kaleidoscope of perspectives to our program.

Beyond their technical prowess and dedication to launching their professional photography careers, these creatives are also champions of conservation. We invite you to explore their captivating portfolios and follow their artistic journeys. Supporting these emerging talents not only nurtures their development but also fosters optimism for a luminous future. 

Join us in applauding these exceptional ambassadors.

  1. Alyson Yates, U.S.A.
  2. Astrid Novillo, Norway
  3. Brooke McDonough, U.S.A.
  4. Céline Bouquet, France
  5. Chelsey Shartz,  U.S.A.
  6. Chelsie Xavier-Blower, Canada
  7. Emily Baker, England 
  8. Francesca Page, Australia
  9. Guadalupe Ludmila Gardetti, New Zealand 
  10. Heidy Camargo,  Panama
  11. Jessica Hadley,  U.S.A.
  12. Maggie Seida,  U.S.A.
  13. Maureen Gathoni, Kenya
  14. Sudha Surendran, India
  15. Tiffany Taxis, U.S.A.
  16. Topo Gaesemodimo, Botswana
  1. Alejandra Rendón, Spain
  2. Alicia Hayden, England
  3. Anna Sapp, U.S.A.
  4. Andrea Sherry, U.S.A.
  5. Beth Hotchkiss, U.S.A.
  6. Chelsea Mayer, U.S.A.
  7. Emma Balunek, U.S.A.
  8. Hallie Cowan, U.S.A.
  9. Jo Davenport, England
  10. Karabo Magakane , South Africa
  11. Katie Waddington, France
  12. Laia Soler,  Norway
  13. Lana Tannir, Germany
  14. Lea Milde, Germany
  15. Maddy Rifka Brunt, U.S.A.
  16. Mya Van Woundenberg, Canada
  17. Neo Mokoena, South Africa
  18. Nicole Holman, Canada
  19. Ningjing Wang, England
  20. Rylee Jensen, U.S.A.
  21. Sadie Hine, U.S.A.
  22. Viktoria Pezzei, Germany

A Fruitful Year Ahead

Each Ambassador has been thoughtfully matched with one of our Partner Photographers, forming a dynamic duo poised to hopefully help take their careers to new heights. These amazing individuals, the backbone of the Girls Who Click Ambassador Program, generously contributes their expertise and mentorship, for which we are profoundly grateful.

Beyond personalized guidance, Ambassadors gain access to Girls Who Click’s nature photography workshops and portfolio reviews, chances to utilize the GWC Social Media platform for their own work, and peer-to-peer connection all over the world in Ambassador-Only virtual meet-ups.

Many of our Continuing Ambassadors, some with us since 2021, will continue into leadership roles, embodying the mission of Girls Who Click.

A heartfelt thank you goes to our program sponsor, Gitzo, who are ensuring our Ambassadors receive cutting-edge equipment, hopefully helping them in the field.

Gitzo and Girls Who Click: Empower young generations of female nature photographers

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This post was originally published by Gitzo. 

Girls Who Click

Gitzo has always been committed to nurturing and inspiring nature photographers to grow and take a step further. By collaborating with Girls Who Click, Gitzo extends its mission to empower the next generation of female wildlife photographers.

Beyond broadening Gitzo’s horizons, this partnership also paves the way for a more inclusive and diverse world within nature and wildlife photography.

Nature photography is a way to celebrate and explore the beauty of nature. It’s for anyone with a curiosity and passion for the natural world, who likes creative storytelling and being outdoors. Now, picture a nature photographer out in the field, skillfully planning their shot and 
maneuvering their gear.  

What do they look like? Who do you see? What kinds of stories are they telling about nature? 

@aledecoibri

The field of nature and wildlife photography is disproportionately male, and far fewer women than men enter wildlife photo competitions. What factors contribute to this phenomenon, why are the numbers of female wildlife photographers limited, and most importantly, is there potential for change soon?  
 
There is nothing inherently gendered about the skills or traits required to be a nature photographer, so why aren’t there more women? While this issue is complex with no simple solution, that doesn’t mean nature photography can’t become a more balanced field. Nature is incredibly diverse and the voices telling the stories of nature should reflect that. That’s where Girls Who Click comes in. 

About Girls Who Click

Girls Who Click is a nonprofit organization founded by Suzi Eszterhas, an award-winning wildlife photographer, that is inspiring and empowering girls to develop a lifelong passion for framing the nature around them and striving to protect it. Girls Who Click partners with full-time working professional photographers from around the world to offer free workshops, physical and online, for girls ages 13-18. It also runs an annual mentorship program, the “Ambassador Program”, for young female conservation photographers and videographers ages 16-30. 

@beth.hotchkiss.photo
@rylee_jay_photo

The Mission

Girls Who Click’s philosophy is based on the real-life experiences of nature photographers in the industry leading free photography workshops for teen girls, ages 13-18. In-person workshops include a full day of photography instruction, combined with hands-on practice in the field. For photographers who can’t make it to one of the in-person locations, Girls Who Click hosts frequent online workshops, which are accessible worldwide. All the workshops are led by Girls Who Click partner photographers able to share knowledge, experience, and advice about nature photography, from technical skills to artistry and professional development.

Through this collaboration, Gitzo aims to empower and inspire young women to pursue their passion for framing the natural world, breaking down barriers and stereotypes that may have hindered their participation in the past.

By supporting Girls Who Click, Gitzo is not only championing gender equality in photography but also ensuring that fresh perspectives and talents thrive, enriching the field of wildlife and conservation photography for years to come. 

@aliciahaydenwildlife
@_miss.v.m_

Ambassadors Mentor Program

Girls Who Click believes that the perspectives behind the lens should be as various as the nature in front of it. This is the reason behind the Ambassador Program, a hands-on mentorship project for female nature photographers and videographers ages 16-30 who seek to take their art to the next level. Ambassadors come from all over the world and different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

What makes the Ambassador Program unique? How does Gitzo enter the game?

Each Ambassador is paired up with a mentor based on their professional and personal goals. 
During the year-long mentorship, they will virtually meet with their mentor to 
develop their portfolio, gain key insights on breaking into the industry, and cultivate a network 
of supportive peers in the photography industry.

Renowned for its commitment to excellence, Gitzo has gone above and beyond by offering top-tier professional gear tailored to support photographers during the educational program, thereby paving the way for their aspirations. Are you curious about Ambassadors’ works?  
Keep following us on social media to stay up to date on the partnership.  

@lea.milde
@the_halligator

Photography workshop at Kukula Kids’ Club! 

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This post was originally published by the Sloth Conservation Foundation. Written by Sarah Kennedy

Photography workshop at Kukula Kids’ Club!

The Kukula Club, a new initiative for The Sloth Conservation Foundation, aims to enable and empower children with additional educational classes, gain new skills through workshops and provide them with fun activities they may not usually have access to due to geographical or financial barriers. 

Recently we teamed up with the amazing Girls Who Click foundation to arrange a week-long photo workshop for the 11 children in our Kukula Club. 

The Kids of the Kukula Club

All of our children in the club, aged 7-12, also participate in the El Puente – The Bridge project. This incredible organization has been serving the indigenous community for decades, they give space to hundreds of indigenous families, helping to provide; food, cultural events, classes, clothing, and school supplies, among many other things. 

We wanted the Kukula club to serve the indigenous communities of the area so we were so grateful to team up with El Puente for this. One of the pillars of SloCo’s mission is to actively have a huge impact. El Puente worked with us to choose 11 children that attended their project to be our first group of the new Kukula Club. 

Girls Who Click

We also teamed up with Girls Who Click (GWC) to bring photography to our Kukula Club kids, Girls Who Click is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded by Suzi Eszterhas, an award-winning wildlife photographer, she sought to create a foundation to inspire young girls to join the nature photography industry.

In a heavily male-dominated field, they aimed to bridge this gap and, to do so, partner with full-time working professional photographers around the country to offer free nature photography workshops for teen girls. Girls Who Click inspires girls to develop lifelong passion for capturing the nature around them and strive to protect it 

They kindly offered to send one of their partners, the amazing Diana Caballero, to give a free week-long workshop to our kids. Diana, from Mexico, is an amazing photographer in her own right, and we couldn’t wait to host her here and give the children this amazing opportunity. 

The Initiative:

For the workshop, we wanted to provide the kids with the necessary tools and knowledge to learn to use the camera as a means of photographic expression through play and experimentation. Through the activities, we wanted to show them how our gaze is a very powerful instrument to share what we are and what surrounds us. 

The cameras

Most of the children do not have access to cameras or phone, so when we decided to do a workshop with them, we knew we wanted to be able to provide them with their own cameras. We used this digital camera and they ended up being the perfect little cameras for the kids. Thank you to everyone who helped support this project so that we were able to provide this item for the children to use. 

What we did:

During our 4-day workshop, Diana set a variety of activities for the children to do so they could learn how to use their cameras and also understand different methods for taking photos. We also set them homework each day to do specific photography assignments at home. Some of the activities and assignments included: 

  • We explain what the camera is, the elements that make it up, how it works, who invented it, and its evolution to this day. 
  • We play and explore the multiple possibilities of looking through a rectangle made with a piece of cardboard that simulates the viewfinder of a camera. 
  • We observe our pet, we follow it everywhere and we take pictures of it. We share and exchange experiences of our pets during the workshop. 
  • We take our favorite toy and imagine a normal day in the life of the toy. We take 10 photographs recounting its life. At the end of the activity, we tell how its life is. 
  • We take photos representing different emotions, for example, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and surprise. 
  • We imagine that we are very small beings, like an ant, a beetle, a dragonfly, a bee… We become that being and we seen many things that we could not see with the naked eye; details and textures, what used to be small can now be something huge. 
  • We incorporate the latest images, review all our photographic work and make a group selection to present an exhibition. 

An unexpected visit

We were so lucky to be visited by a sloth on day 3 – this was amazing and it came down so low that we were able to get an amazing photo of the sloth – the perfect gift for our Kukula Club kids! 

Photo by Nash
Photo by Jorge
Photo by Gabriel
Photo by Ester
Photo by Daishy

The future of the photography workshop:

We exhibited the children’s photos at El Puente over the weekend so that during their soup kitchen that Saturday, the families who visit El Puente, would be able to see all the kids’ hard work. Now that the children have been taught how to use the cameras we plan to continue working with them and having them photograph different experiences. We have met twice since the workshop and they have worked on getting the following photos: 

  • A beach landscape photo
  • A photo of movement i.e. dancing, running, jumping
  • Photos of the great green macaws

We want to be able to continue to nurture the children’s passion for photography and capturing the world around them. In October, for international sloth day, we are also planning on doing a huge exhibition with the kids’ photos to showcase their talent at the event. 

In the future we hope to give this workshop to more children in the area, continuing to work with Girls Who Click to do so. 

– Sarah Kennedy

Director of Education & Outreach

Sloth Conservation Foundation

Teenage girls at the Girls Who Click event, Lake Jackson, Texas, Sept 22, 2018

Our First Year is a Wrap. Help us Continue

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Thanks to the kindness of our donors, Girls Who Click has had an incredible first year. From the start, we had an overwhelmingly positive response from the nature photography and conservation community, which reaffirmed the need for our work and the timeliness of it. We ran workshops this year in California, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Oregon. It takes a lot of work to pull off each workshop. We help our photographer instructors plan the workshop, and then GWC works hard to organize the logistics, secure necessary permissions, promote the workshop to local schools and youth groups in order to recruit girls, distribute application materials to interested students, review the applications, select candidates, and communicate with parents about preparation. This year we have been able to develop a team of talented volunteers, which has helped us adhere to our small budget and keep spending to a minimum.

Workshop in Newport, Oregon with Jaymi Heimbuch

Our girls come from all walks of life, and we are pleased to say that we had many minorities and low income students go through our workshop this year. It means the world to us that these workshops are accessible to all teen girls, regardless of cultural background or economic status.

After receiving a lot of interest from girls living outside the USA, we created a program called Global Photo Challenges. These are simple photo assignments that we post on social media and encourage girls all over the world to share their photos. 

Looking back on the year, our greatest achievement is that we have managed to reach so many girls, not only through our workshops, but through our social media outreach, Global Photo Challenges, and the media.

Next year we have plans to increase the number of workshops offered throughout the USA and offer our first international workshops to girls as far away as Germany and Mozambique. We also plan on offering girls the opportunity to apply for and receive a free portfolio review or career advice consultation with professional female photographers over video Skype. 

If you would like to offer your financial support, please visit https://girlswhoclick.org/donate/

Girls Who Click nature photography workshop for teen girls

Nature Photography – Where Are the Women?

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It’s an undisputed fact; there are fewer women in the arena of nature photography than there are men. But why? Do men bring something special to the arena? Or is it simply a stereotype that this is a man’s profession? There doesn’t appear to be a clear reason for the disparity between the numbers of men and women in this profession.

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