Topic: Medium website for photo essays and essays about photography

[hookstrapped]

I recently discovered the Medium website and its Vantage photography page now that I'm back on facebook and I see stories people shared, like the one I posted here about how Vice magazine recently depicted Appalachia, lazily feeding the same old negative stereotypes.  That got me to thinking... especially with all the stories in the news about Amnesty International's upcoming policy vote on decriminalization of sex work (in the news I follow, anyway  ).

So I wrote a piece about my DR series with links to the photos, a more personal story which is Medium's style. You just self-publish your story and it sits out in the ether. I did that last night and this morning I had an email from the editor of the Vantage photography page who also runs the Photography Prison tumblr that I follow and like a lot. He wanted to feature it on Vantage. So here it is.

https://medium.com/vantage

(BTW, clicking on the photos gets rid of that irritating menu bar at the bottom)

There's some interesting stories there on photography.

[hookstrapped]

So BoingBoing picked up my piece and that has led to a huge amount of traffic

http://boingboing.net/2015/08/07/diary-of-a-sex-tourist-a-phot.html

And the editor at Medium-Vantage wrote a piece explaining/defending his decision to run it. Not sure if this is genuine controversy or manufactured, but regardless I'm taking it as a lesson in how the internet operates. He characterizes the series in a way that's helpful for me to understand why it hasn't until now, in the context of a personal story/advocacy piece, found a setting that fits. It's kind of genre non-conforming -- not documentary, not portraiture, many genres and none at the same time.

https://medium.com/vantage/why-i-included-diary-of-a-sex-tourist-in-the-medium-collection-i-edit-89efee8c263d

[Diane Peterson]

Happy to see your work is noticed.

[hookstrapped]

Thanks Diane. What's gratifying is that it's gained some visibility because of its advocacy in support of Amnesty International's draft proposal for full decriminalization of sex work, in support of the human rights of sex workers. The basic humanity and ordinariness of the women I met is what I tried to get across, and if it helps illustrate that idea then I'm happy.

[Photo_Utopia]

I enjoyed the photo story it shows a lot of humanity, I hope you get the recognition you deserve.
Regards
Mark

[hookstrapped]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11796679/Sex-work-Amnesty-International-backs-decriminalising-the-entire-trade.html