PAIS: Fashion Photography that is Ethical

Ethical fashion photography ≠ photographing for ethical fashion brands.

Fashion Photography in today’s world:

-Still perpetuates ideals of youth, beauty, and size that aren’t inclusive. 
-Understands cultural diversity through adopting aspects of that culture but underrepresents individuals from that culture in the images.
-Lacks transparency of the impact on the environment, people involved from start to finish ( from creating the garment to the production behind an image (team, set, makeup), to the publishing of the photo. 

Ethical Fashion: Considers social and environmental aspects when producing garments and accessories and tries to limit these negative impacts.

Ethical Fashion Photographer: A photographer who only works with Ethical Fashion Brands. 

Ethical fashion photography ≠ photographing for ethical fashion brands.

What will your donation do? 

Your contribution will help us create PAIS an ethical Image making agency. We will: 

- Provide educational photography materials and programs for young people in underserved communities
- Global online community of allies and professionals 
- Pledge system, one that elevates ethical photographers and ethical fashion brands based on accountability and transparency from garment to image

Your seed contribution to this fund will be used to pay for:

- Stage 1: Support from other fashion and photography experts to implement and iterate the pledge- 3,000€ 
- Stage 2: Expert support in marketing, business management training, branding-5,000€ 
- Stage 3: Registering Pais-  Ethical Image making as a business, trademark and cover all preliminary legal fees-7,000€

What do you need to do? Donate what you can and share.

 What will your donation get you?

From 50€: Receive a message and a high-resolution digital collage.

From 100€: A 'power hour' photography consulting call.

From 500€: Photography consulting & good practices strategy creation.

From 1000€: Good practices strategy creation & I would oversee a commercial photoshoot and leave a  considerations and suggestions report.

Reach out:https://www.instagram.com/pais.agency/
Email: [email redacted]ncy


Imagine a community where like-minded professionals from photography and fashion come together as partners to build an alternative system that showcases equity, inclusion, and sustainability, to transcend the way we create for us and the planet. 

The vision is to build an alternative system where photography and photographers are elevated to the role of partner in the creation of a truly sustainable fashion and photography industry and to redefine and reimagine what ethical fashion photography is.

My story :

Hi, I’m Eunice Pais. I’m a self-taught photographer and a Portuguese woman of Mozambican descent. I’m in awe of this planet and its people and I use photography to explore the interconnectedness between mother earth and humans.

I’ve always been drawn to images that make me dream, evoke strong emotions and endless possibilities. Five years ago I decided to go from observer to maker -  bought myself a camera and a roll of film and began my photography journey. I fell in love immediately. I practiced every day, experimenting with different techniques. 

It was a joy, and so was meeting other photographers and understanding their journey. Between practising and conversations, a few things became clear: processing film is environmentally detrimental (several chemicals in film processing are toxic) as well as the manufacturing of digital cameras(microchips and semiconductors). Furthermore, there is waste involved in photo productions ( props, food, packaging, equipment, unnecessary traveling).

This was a turning point for me. Here I understood that doing first and thinking later about the impact of my actions wasn’t sustainable long-term.

At this point, I knew three things: I loved photographing, people, nature, clothes. And I wondered, ‘can photography BE a responsible practice’ and is anyone else thinking this way? If so, in what ways can photography be responsible and where do I start answering these questions? With research, I decided that working with ethical fashion brands could be a good way to start.

I began working with ethical brands and was quickly embraced into this loving community and learned about every aspect of sustainable fashion: supply chain, fibers, farming, product and impact. Sustainability became about integrating ethical practices in image making. For the past 4 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with ethical fashion brands and develop ways to create images that are environmentally and socially positive. Now, I want to take it another step further and build a comprehensive and transparent process of image making from garment to the publishing of the photo.

I am eternally grateful for this community and all that I’ve learnt from you. Thank you Jamie, Hannah, Ibada, Akilah, Mum, Bruno, Linda, Daniela, Helena, Ana, Kelly, Sam, Fleur, Lucy, Whitney and the list goes on because the world is filled with inspiring people!
 
Sending much love,

Eunice Pais.