For too long, storytelling — especially in photography and journalism — has been shaped by a narrow set of voices. Certain stories were told over and over. Others were ignored completely. And too often, women were not the storytellers — they were the subjects, the symbols, the background. femLENS was founded to challenge that.

From day one, our goal was not just to teach photography. It was to shift the frame — to put cameras into the hands of women whose voices had been excluded, overlooked, or misrepresented. We asked: What changes when the woman behind the camera is the one shaping the narrative? The answer, time and time again, has been: everything.

Over the past 10 years, women have told their own stories in refugee camps, social housing communities, rural villages, urban protests, and everyday spaces. They have documented work, motherhood, migration, resistance, joy, and grief — not for spectacle, but for truth. Their stories have not just filled gaps — they have questioned the very structure of what counts as “news,” “art,” or “representation.”

What we have seen is that access to storytelling is access to power. And when women are behind the lens, the image changes — not only what it shows, but how it’s made, who it’s for, and why it matters. It becomes a collaborative act, not an extractive one. It opens space for care, trust, and perspective.

A decade later, femLENS is still asking hard questions. Who is being seen? Who is doing the seeing? And what systems decide whose stories deserve space?

We believe the answers still lie in grassroots media, in collective learning, and in trusting women to speak — and frame — for themselves.

As we mark ten years this August, we thank every woman who has picked up a camera through femLENS and made us rethink what storytelling can be. And we invite you — our community — to keep asking, keep supporting, and keep shifting the lens.