'I want to be a photographer' - Photo Meet up - Is photography industry male dominated?

Hi everyone!

In this post I'm reflecting on a photo meet up I've attended back in July organised by UK Shooters. You can check their upcoming events on their website.
I've decided to give it a go as at their event they were professional models attending, so it was a good chance to get some portraits done. Since I'm not a pro in shooting people it was good practice hence there was no need for instructing models to pose, unless you have certain framing in mind.

The meet up took place in Barbican estate. What instantly positively surprised me was the number of attendees - probably around one hundred - pretty decent number.
So after warm welcome and few lines of explanation from the organisers the models spread around different sections of the estate. The idea was that a photographer can wander around and choose a model they want to work with either with other photographers or individually with models. There were outfit changes, smoke granades, masks etc so plenty to work with.

Overall the meet up was such a great event and always good to learn something new...There were just some downsize points, but to be honest a valuable learning experience. At times due to the big number of attendees it was hard to get a good frame, you're about to get that perfect frame and some camera jumps out in front of you. But well you need to act fast if you want to be a photographer :)
What initially surprised me was how many young people turned up..actually maybe that's not something out of ordinary. Teenagers now are the make of digital era, I didn't dream about my first mobile till my teens. Now kids can operate Iphones, tablets and expensive camera gear. This was actually the fact that stroke me - some of those teenagers at the meet up had cameras probably twice the price of my DSLR.
The other think that stroke me the most was how males outnumbered females photographers at that meet up. For about total number of 100 people, not to lie to you there must have been maybe ten ladies with a camera. I'm not sure whether it's because photography was always dominated by men? Or is it because it's highly competitive and saturated industry already? But does that mean women are less driven? Or maybe it's still the case like with any other profession that women are still likely to be paid less for the same job men would do? Or does it strictly depends on the area of photography we look at? Photojournalism, sport photography is still more likely a scene for males probably to the fact that we ladies don't go to war zones that eagerly...:)
Well, that got me thinking at the event itself but in general as well 'why photography is male dominated?'
Any fellow lady photographers there? Would love to hear from you :)
And fellow male photographers - I'm curious what's your opinion on that.
Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!! :)

And for now I'll leave you with some of the pictures I've taken at that meet up. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,
Justyna xxx

ALL IMAGES ORIGINAL & MINE