New image collection helps disabled people be seen

“I just never saw anyone that looks like me,” Catrin

Business Disability Forum (BDF) has launched a new collection of images to mark ‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities today’ (3 December). The images of disabled people in everyday situations will be available to businesses and the media and aim to challenge perceptions and increase understanding around disability. They are the latest addition to Business Disability Forum’s extensive Disability Smart Image Bank and its ‘Changing the image of disability’ campaign.

Professional and non-professional disabled models posed for the new collection created by the leading business and disability inclusion organisation. The latest images were shot at a busy airport and show disabled people travelling, working in or visiting a major transport hub. The models, who took part, expressed the importance of disabled people being seen.

Catrin Pugh, aged 30, from London was one of the professional models featured. She has been passionate about improving the portrayal of disability since her accident, eleven years ago, which left her with a visual impairment, a limb difference and extensive scarring all over her body, which affects her mobility. She said that after her accident she just never saw an image of anyone who looked like her.

Catrin said:

“At that time, “I really noticed that everything I was seeing was about how to look and be perfect. I felt so sad because I was obviously not in a position to reach those standards. I was aware that wherever I went and whatever I saw in marketing campaigns and adverts, I just never, ever, saw anyone that looked like me.”

Business Disability Forum’s Director of Communications, Lara Davis, led the creation of the Disability Smart Image Bank and the Changing the image of disability campaign. Lara said:

“Too often disabled people are either not represented or misrepresented in the images and content we see. This leaves disabled people feeling alienated and businesses missing out on valuable customers and employees. We hope our latest collection of authentic images will help disabled people to be seen and understood.”

The Disability Smart image collection

The 100 new images are part of Business Disability Forum’s expanding Disability Smart Image Bank. The image bank contains nearly 600 images of people with a broad range of visible and less-visible disabilities and conditions in everyday situations. The images are available to Business Disability Forum Members and a free collection of 60 images has also been created for use by media.

The image bank is part of Business Disability Forum’s ‘Changing the image of disability’ campaign, which was launched earlier this year. Research conducted by Ipsos and published by Business Disability Forum as part of the campaign found that disabled people are often ‘missing’ from imagery seen in media, marketing, or advertising.

• A third (32 per cent) of UK adults surveyed by Ipsos had not seen any disability represented in content they had seen, watched or read during the last 6 months. This is despite 1 in 4 people in the UK having a disability.
• At the same time, less than a quarter (23 per cent) of people with a disability surveyed agreed that images of disabled people used in content they had seen, watched or read reflected their own experience of disability.

The ‘Changing the image of disability’ campaign calls on businesses and the media to:

• Increase representation of disabled people in imagery.
• Portray an authentic and realistic view of disability in images.
• Reflect the diversity of disabled people in images.
• A number of advertising, media organisations, photographic desks and businesses are supporting the campaign as well as several high-profile people with lived experience of disability, including TV personality and Business Disability Forum Ambassador, Simon Minty.
• Alongside the Disability Smart Image Bank, Business Disability Forum has also published free guidance on how to portray disability in images. The images and guidance were created with input from disabled people as models and advisers.

Go to the Changing the image of disability page for more information on the campaign, the guidance, and the image bank.

Ends

For further information on the campaign and to gain access to the collection of 60 images available for media use, please email media@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk or call 020 7403 3020.