4/3 Exhibits at Icelandic Embassy & National Portrait Gallery London (By Gabrielle Motola).

This is a Guest Post by Gabrielle Motola:

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I originally trained on film and have used it for more than half of my career. You could even say I was a loyalist. Then a friend (who is nothing short of a genius) got me into micro four thirds. I was sceptical at first but this was a way of working without the lab bill. Olympus OMD cameras have been my primary camera of choice for the past three years for a number of reasons, two of them being their size and the image quality they produce. For ‘Women of Iceland’ I took three OM-D bodies with me and three lenses. Mostly I used the 17 mm and the 45 mm. I was able to work quickly and silently as I photographed and talked to the women I interviewed. Not being formally trained in the art of interview has its advantages and eventually I started recording my shoots with the help of an Olympus WS-831 recorder.

‘Women of Iceland’ is a series of portraits and interviews with some of the dynamic minds to emerge from Icelandic society. Essentially I looked to Iceland as a model for gender equality which aside from the human rights perspective, has a lot of psychological, technical, and economic benefits for society. The project aims to share wisdom and inspiration from people who live in a country which has been consistently voted the number one country for gender equality (World Economic Forum – Gender Global Gap Report) six times in a row. The UK and USA aren’t even in the top ten. The project’s point isn’t so much about “look over there – look what they’ve done” as it is about “why isn’t that happening over here” and what do we need to do? To be clear, it’s not that there is no gender gap at all in Iceland; but it is striking to see what is possible when you have a generous and gender neutral paternity/maternity leave policy and an affordable child care system in place. The series includes people from a broad spectrum of disciplines from music to psychology to finance and education. Principal photography is complete and we are currently working towards publication of the project as a book. An exhibition with selected portraits from the series is open by appointment only at the Embassy of Iceland in London from February 2nd, 2015 until mid-June, 2015. More information is available here. To support this project please click here.

Gabrielle Motola
www.gabriellemotola.com
Women of Iceland
Interview in Olympus Magazine
Twitter & Instagram: @gmotophotos