In 2025, Lizzie Mayson received The Claire Aho Award for Girls Photographers. This class, launched in 2021, goals to encourage and rejoice ladies photographers and is in reminiscence of Claire Aho, Finland’s biggest ladies photographer.
For our newest weblog, in celebration of Worldwide Girls’s Day, we caught up with Lizzie to study the story of that fascinating profitable {photograph} in addition to her phrases of knowledge for ladies in images.
1. Successful the Claire Aho Award for Girls Photographers is a big recognition. What did receiving this award imply to you personally and professionally?
It meant an awesome deal to me, a milestone in not solely my profession however my life too. Images isn’t solely a profession for me, it additionally appears like a life-style at occasions. As a photographer, even once you’re working in groups on shoots, you may nonetheless by some means really feel like a lone ranger, you’re making 1000’s of selections quietly, in your personal head, and also you don’t at all times cease to clock what you’ve constructed.
Receiving recognition in a room filled with friends was actually affirming. It was a type of uncommon moments the place you’re pressured to pause and really take it in, and let your self really feel proud. Personally, it felt like a deep exhale. A second of self-reflection and adoration, and a reminder that the best way I see the world does translate to different folks.
Professionally, it gave me confidence to maintain leaning into the sort of work I’m drawn to: human tales, heat, and actual life. It additionally felt significant that it’s a ladies’s award, not as a result of I need to be “put in a field”, however as a result of visibility issues. I would like youthful ladies this business to see that there’s house for them, and that you just don’t need to be the loudest individual within the room to make robust work.
Lizzie being awarded the Claire Aho Award for Girls Photographers with Grasp of Ceremonies, Yotam Ottolenghi, and Fiona Shields, Decide and Head of Images at The Guardian.
2. Your profitable picture of Delfina was out of your Pasta Grannies challenge. What drew you to this challenge and what was Delfina’s explicit story?
We now have a lot to study from our elders, so a challenge involving delving into the kitchens of many Nonna’s felt like an honour. There’s one thing extremely grounding about being in somebody’s house the place they’ve made the identical recipes for many years. It’s not a set, it’s a life. And with Pasta Grannies it’s by no means simply pasta. It’s heritage, love, survival, ritual, and household.
Delfina actually stayed with me. She spends a lot time taking care of others. She makes a lot pasta each week {that a} native church cooks for homeless folks. That alone says every little thing about her. Her story presents quite a bit we may all study from. Selflessness, generosity, perception, and empathy are phrases that come to thoughts, and in addition stamina, actually. She has this quiet energy that isn’t performative in any respect. It’s simply who she is.
I’m very grateful for that second and expertise. Capturing that sort of fact is why I {photograph}. And being awarded for sharing Pasta Grannies’ tales is rewarding in itself. I’m grateful to have shared her story, and I hope the picture carries even a fraction of what it felt prefer to be there along with her.
Lizze’s {photograph} of Delfina from her Previous Grannies challenge received the Claire Aho Award for Girls Photographers in 2025.
3. The ladies you {photograph} for Pasta Grannies are sometimes working inside personal, private areas. How do you construct belief and create an environment the place such genuine moments can unfold naturally?
This challenge is a testomony to collaboration, teamwork, and capturing the second. I can’t take full credit score, Livia De Giovanni translated Italian for me, and that adjustments every little thing as a result of it means you’re not guessing. You’re genuinely connecting. When somebody feels understood, they chill out. You’re additionally being respectful in a really sensible manner. You’re in somebody’s house, of their private house, and it’s a must to deal with that with care.
I additionally assume older generations usually aren’t as self-aware as youthful generations. They’re not consistently monitoring how they appear or how they’re coming throughout, in order that they act naturally with out consciously making an attempt. There’s a purity to that. They’re busy doing.
However I by no means depend on that alone. I attempt to enter gently. Small crew, calm power, minimal fuss. I’m at all times anticipating the second somebody appears uncertain, after which I sluggish proper down. Outdoors of this challenge, I usually converse with a topic earlier than taking out the digital camera. I attempt to join with them, put them relaxed, smile, and make them really feel unbelievable. I would like folks to really feel like themselves, not like they’re being shot. Usually the belief comes from letting them lead. Letting them present you the way they do it, letting them be pleased with their arms, their kitchen, their manner.
4. Meals images can typically really feel extremely styled or industrial, but your work feels deeply human and grounded. How do you steadiness aesthetics with authenticity in your storytelling?
There may be completely a spot for extremely stylised images, and I like it when it’s carried out brilliantly. However I’ve at all times naturally been drawn to recreating extra plausible scenes. Photographs that also really feel elevated, however may genuinely exist.
Balancing aesthetics and authenticity could be difficult. For me it comes all the way down to intention. I’ll at all times ask myself whether or not this merchandise must be there and why. Is it a part of the individual’s actual world, or is it being positioned as a result of it appears good? If it’s the second, it often goes. I would like the styling to really feel prefer it belongs to the story, not prefer it’s competing with it.
I’ll nonetheless form the body. Mild, composition, small changes, perhaps transferring one thing barely so it reads higher. However I strive to not polish the life out of it. The perfect photos, for my part, maintain each. They’re visually satisfying, however they nonetheless have breath in them. You’ll be able to really feel an individual behind the meals, not only a product.
5. On Worldwide Girls’s Day, conversations usually flip to visibility and alternative. What limitations have you ever encountered as a lady in images, and what adjustments would you continue to prefer to see within the business?
Actually, I’m fortunate to have been championed by males very early in my profession and by ladies in a while. I’ve at all times felt empowered to do something with out my intercourse inflicting restrictions or difficulties. My robust father, Charles, instilled this message amongst us three ladies in our family and he continues to take action with the grandchildren; going as far as to publish a ladies’s empowerment e-book to additional instill this message.
That upbringing created a second nature in me that doesn’t let my intercourse detract from my skilled path, or make me query my talents in any aspect of my life. I do know that’s not everybody’s expertise, so I by no means take it without any consideration. Even after I haven’t personally felt blocked, I’m very conscious the business can nonetheless be uneven. Who will get supplied what, who will get paid what, whose management is assumed, who is predicted to be simple, who is predicted to be grateful. I’d like to see extra transparency, extra equal entry, and extra ladies in positions of commissioning energy, not simply being commissioned.
I actually encourage younger ladies to lean into self-empowerment and self-belief. I attempt to do the identical for the youthful generations by supporting, encouraging creating concepts, lending tools, and most just lately collaborating with universities to encourage and develop the brand new wave of expertise coming into the business. If we would like change, now we have to actively make house and cross issues ahead.
6. What recommendation would you give to ladies who need to pursue a profession in images?
Help! Help! Help!, till you may’t do it anymore or once you actually really feel you might have learnt all you may. Aiding teaches you the way shoots really run. The tempo, the politics, the lighting, the shopper dynamic, the problem-solving. It additionally teaches you what sort of photographer you need to be, and what form you don’t.
Collaborate too. Discover others at related levels, experiment, attempt to make work that stands out, be provocative together with your work, and push the envelope. Don’t be disheartened once you don’t like the result.
“Throw your hat over the wall and hold scrambling after it.” (My father Charles Mayson’s basic phrase would at all times ring out in my thoughts when taking dangers)
The dangerous shoots are nonetheless information. You’re constructing style and resilience, and each matter.
And a sensible one. Take your self critically early. Defend your power, study to cost correctly, put boundaries round your time, and don’t anticipate permission to start out making the work you need to be employed for. Make your private initiatives, and make them with coronary heart, as a result of the work that adjustments your profession often begins with you, not with a quick.
