But of course, there are exceptions. Another female photographer, who has been working carpets for about 10 years, says that gender parity doesn’t always lead to a healthier environment; the photographer Roan yelled at at the VMAs was a woman. “It’s a little more balanced,” she says. “But unfortunately, some of the most toxic people are women.”
As in other industries, some women may feel like they have to replicate the behavior of their male predecessors to fit in or get a leg up. “That’s residual of just women having to adapt and be seen as equal—and that includes being equally, and more, offensive,” the photographer says.
Along with COVID, the rise of social media dramatically shifted the photography environment. Longtime photographer Jeff Kravitz points out that the Grammys photo pit used to pen in around 75 photographers. This year, it only housed around 14 of them by his count—and the back rows were used instead for social media reps from various publications, many of whom were taking video. Those social media reporters have a very different approach than traditional photographers, often supplying a more fly-on-the-wall perspective rather than jostling for the talent’s attention.
The talent themselves also have more control over their photos and videos now, thanks to social media. It used to be that you’d have to wait until a celebrity hit the carpet to see what they were wearing; now talent can post their looks on their own social media before they head out. “Our whole world has changed,” says Kravitz. “The first time I saw someone’s cell phone picture run instead of my photograph, I was like, ‘Here’s the beginning of the end.’”
Still, there’s value to official red-carpet photos—especially for the fashion and jewelry brands that dress the stars. “The designers that are loaning and the jewelers that are loaning and all of those things, they care more about the red-carpet shot because that is still the thing that carries internationally,” says the publicist. “They care about those red-carpet shots, so that’s still important.”
Thanks to social media, a photographer’s bad behavior can also be caught on camera—and broadcast for all the internet to see. “You don’t want to be shouting at people in their faces and then going viral,” says another veteran photographer based in Los Angeles. “We have now become the target of social media attacks.”
At the 2024 Met Gala, several photographers were caught on a livestream talking about the K-Pop group Stray Kids in a mocking tone, saying, “I’ve never seen so many unemotional faces in my life” and “they’re like robots.” The video went viral, leading the group’s passionate fans to hunt down the photographers’ names, spam their social media accounts, and even hack one of their websites, replacing the content with a blank page containing only the message “Apologize to Stray Kids.”
“You really have to watch your Ps and Qs out there. Nobody’s irreplaceable—everybody’s expendable,” says Kravitz. “If you like your job, you like what you’re doing, just shut your mouth and do it.”
