For women who want to succeed in sports photography, passion, resilience and commitment are prerequisites.

 

Female camera artists want to thrive behind the lens, but the struggle to navigate a male-dominated industry, as well as life’s ups and downs, make the job less than picture-perfect.

 

That’s where the prereqs come in.

 

THREE WOMEN, THREE JOURNEYS

 

Danielle Cortez knew she wanted a life that was all about baseball. What started as a dream playing professionally soon turned into a journey of gender identity and finding a passion behind the camera.

 

A Diamondbacks fan her entire life, Cortez serves as a MLB photographer shooting the team’s home games. She attended Arizona State’s Cronkite School of Journalism where a sports photography class introduced her to the craft.

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Even when she’s working, she has her moments when the fan in her jumps out.

 

“In the 2017 Wild Card game, it was the 8th inning and the [Diamondbacks] had bases loaded, two outs with a relief pitcher batting,” Cortez said. “He hit a triple and I got so excited I blacked out.”

While the story of her fandom is exciting, it’s what she went through to get to this point that makes her so inspiring.

 

Cortez is a transgender Latina woman and knew her assigned gender was wrong when she was just nine years old.

 

As she got older, she had to switch her mindset from player to photographer.

 

“I had no idea what I wanted to do because I spent my entire life wanting to be a baseball player,” she said. “I worked really hard at it and that was the biggest reason I suppressed myself and my feelings of being me. You couldn’t be me and be a baseball player.”

 

Cortez served as a social media intern for the Diamondbacks before accepting a content creator job that she has been in for the last six years.

 

“I never planned on this being a career,” she said. “I only took one class, it’s crazy how it all worked out.”

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Kym Fortino has been a team photographer for the San Francisco 49ers for the past 14 seasons.

 

She, like Cortez, loved the sport and knew she wanted to immerse herself in it in some way. However, Fortino originally wanted to be in front of the camera.

 

“I actually wanted to be a sideline reporter,” she said. “But there wasn’t this slew of women sideline reporters like there are now and the resources weren’t there.”

 

After buying a photo of her son playing football, she decided to take the passion she had for photography and turn it into something serious.

 

“I said ‘I’m just going to get a camera and play around.’”

 

That playing around led her to some freelance opportunities before making it to the 49ers and growing in the role she has today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then in July 2013, the unimaginable happened.

Fortino was diagnosed with breast cancer after discovering a lump on her chest that didn’t go away.

 

“It never entered my mind that it was cancer,” she said. “I eat healthy, I do all the right things, I don’t smoke. I never checked off any of the boxes that would, in my mind, think it was cancer.”

 

She had to prepare for her life to be flipped upside down. However, she decided to beat it while keeping her work schedule intact.

 

“My whole treatment was around football season,” Fortino said. “I would get chemo on Monday and shoot on Sunday. I still traveled and did all the things they told me not to do.”

 

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On the weekends, you can find Melina Myers on the sidelines shooting photography for the Florida State Seminoles and Jacksonville Jaguars. During the week, she trades in her camera for a computer.

 

Myers always had a general interest in photography, but it was when she got to college that she could really explore that interest. She started shooting photography for FSU’s school paper and that’s how she got her first credential to a football game in 2009. She became the photo editor, worked for the local paper and now she does work for USA Today and Panini America trading cards.

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Unlike Cortez and Fortino, sports wasn’t her primary career path. Instead, Myers had a passion for teaching.

 

She majored in computer science, got her master’s and stayed at FSU to replace a teacher who was retiring. When her work week is done, she switches back to photography mode.

 

“I go over to Jacksonville every Sunday that they have a home game,” Myers said. “I drive over there at like 6 a.m.,  I do the game, I drive back and then I teach on Monday.”

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Myers is usually able to manage both. Her biggest conflict came when the biggest game of the year for FSU lined up with the beginning of her teaching journey.

 

“FSU went to the National Championship for football and they were playing in California,” she said. “Everyone’s asking me if I’m going, but I kept saying that it’s the first day of my career and I can’t do that.”

 

She missed the game, but Myers enjoys living her life like a superhero with a hidden identity.

 

“I call my photography job my secret Batman job,” she said. “Once my students figure out that I’m out there on the field on game day, they’re like ‘That’s my teacher!’”

 

BLENDING IN AMONG THE REST

 

There are countless stereotypes that women face in the sports industry.

 

In her graduate thesis, Caylie Silveira of West Virginia University discussed five stereotypes that women often face in sports, specifically the NFL.

 

In her paper, she wrote: 1) Women don’t understand sports as well as men, 2) that their looks implicate how they are perceived by others, 3) women don’t have the knowledge to operate camera equipment, and 4) women do not have the physical build to handle the sidelines, and 5) women are too emotional.

 

These labels hold weight as it has been proven that men are given a leg up in sports simply because they’re men. Women like Cortez, Fortino and Myers prove that those assumptions are just that: assumptions. 

 

For Cortez, she quit her job with MLB as she went through her transition.

“I remember emailing my boss saying I’m going through something, there’s changes in my life and I don’t think it’s going to be worth hiring me back again.”

 

As if the universe pushed her back, Cortez returned to baseball and has succeeded, even when everything in front of her was unknown.

 

“I had no idea what to expect because they’re all men and, even the women I knew were all white,” she said. “I had never seen anybody like myself in sports photography or any position for that matter. But the Diamondbacks have been incredible to me and supported me coming back.”

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Noel Guevara, Diamondbacks’ manager of special events & community programs, credits Cortez for living her truth.

 

“Her coming out made her fully aware of who she is,” Guevara said. “She’s ready to take on whatever’s coming her way and I’m so proud of her.”

 

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In 2018, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) released the Associated Press Sports Editors Racial and Gender Report Card. This studied hiring practices in sports papers and websites.

 

Overall, gender hiring received an F.

 

In six categories ranging from sports editors to columnists to designers, five of them received an F as well. One job, assistant sports editors, received a C- for hiring 30% women.

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“I was one of the only female [team] photographers out there for a couple years,” she said. “There’s probably at least six of us now.”

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However, there are still moments of mistreatment from some men.

 

“There was one guy in particular who made it a point to bump me as he walked by and it felt like he was trying to intimidate me,” Fortino said. “I’m tiny, but my alter ego is like 6’5 so I thought if you want to play this game I can play it, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the mindsets of men have changed over time, older generations struggle to accept the younger generations, the women sometimes feel.

 

“Photographers who have been shooting since film days are sometimes a little anti-younger,” Myers said. “People would ignore me, step in front of my camera or step in front of me to block me from getting a shot. I attribute that to age.”

 

WHEN THE CAMERA IS OFF

 

A 2005 survey in the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly determined the factors that keep women in sports and the experiences that make them question whether or not it’s best to leave. 16 years has brought immense change, but there is still a long way to go.

 

One overwhelming statistic was in response to the prompt, “Sexual discrimination is a problem for women in sports media.”

 

Out of 144 responses, 68% of women agreed, while 17% strongly agreed. Only a combined 10% disagreed or strongly disagreed.

 

This hit Cortez specifically when she hit a low point in 2017.

 

“I had a huge anxiety attack on the way to a spring training game,” she said. “Baseball was my escape until the day it wasn’t and that’s when I realized I needed to do something.”

 

After some time without hearing from her, Guevara saw Cortez again in a new way.

 

“We were going into the 2020 season and she reached out to me explaining that she was coming back as a content creator,” Guevara said. “She was excited to finally live authentically.”

 

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For Myers, her passion for teaching isn’t the sole reason she doesn’t pick up photography full time.

 

“Photography doesn’t pay as much as it should and it’s not as appreciated as much as it should be,” she said. “While the salaries can be good, the salary teaching at a university is better.”

 

In the J&MC study, 11% of women considered leaving their career in sports due to pay.

 

Mike Ewen is a former photographer at the Tallahassee Democrat. He mentored Myers while she worked there.

 

“It’s a tough way to make a dollar,” he said. “There are people out there who are very good and very few positions are open.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ewen wishes Myers could shoot full time.

 

“The world could use [her] eye and [her] work ethic,” he said.

 

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A study from the Journals of Occupational & Environmental Medicine titled “Breast Cancer Survivors at Work” discussed the typical symptoms for survivors.

 

The biggest symptom is fatigue, which is present in 34-45% of breast cancer survivors. The more physically demanding the job, the bigger the impact. General recommendations surround the idea of taking things easy and avoiding any high-stress, high-intensity situations.

 

For Fortino, that was not the path she took.

 

After receiving her diagnosis, she did everything to keep her job as normal as possible. She had it all planned out to the last detail.  That commitment turned her into “Kympossible,” a nickname the team gave her.

 

“The Super Bowl was in Arizona and my radiologist was looking up places in Arizona that I could get radiation at every day.

 

“I had to get a biopsy during the day and I had an event at night,” she said. “They said I’m probably going to be sore and I don’t want to carry anything heavy, but I have to carry my camera.”

 

“I found strength in the players and the coaches that rallied around me. It was a break from my reality.”

 

Fortino’s treatment lasted through the 2013 season. She remains in remission.

 

STAYING TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE

 

Since coming out, Cortez became an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, specifically in the Diamondbacks organization.

 

She was celebrated during the team’s Pride Night by throwing out the first pitch and works with their Team Player Resource Group to better the ballpark experience.

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“She’s the only non-Diamondbacks employee that is part of this group,” Guevara said. “We took her feedback and integrated the family restrooms into an all-inclusive restroom. Every single level of our ballpark now has inclusive restrooms.”

 

Cortez is just grateful that she can be herself and live the life she’s dreamed.

 

“We’re in this global sport of baseball and everyone is telling me that there’s never been someone like me,” she said. “I’m just able to be me and not even think twice about it.”

 

This summer, Fortino is preparing for another season with the 49ers -- eight years after her cancer diagnosis.

 

“I don’t know if the universe just knew,” she said. “It allowed me to stay active, keep my mind strong and focused week to week as opposed to letting cancer consume me and feeling like a victim.”

 

Across the country in Florida, Myers uses her teaching skills and commitment to making sports an inclusive place when welcoming new photographers to the field

 

“Whenever somebody new comes to shoot we’re like ‘hey, do you need any help, do you know where to go,’” she said. “That was never the case years ago.”

 

Every day is a new opportunity for women in sports photography to make the industry a more inclusive place. For  Cortez, Fortino and Myers, passion, resilience and commitment continue to drive them.