Nikon's apology for campaign featuring only male photographers backfires

Nikon has come under fire in the photographer community for its lack of female representation in its latest campaign promoting its D850 camera. The campaign featured 32 male photographers across the Asia Pacific region and portrayed how the men in the campaign experience FX-format D850.Following the backlash, the camera company posted an apology in a bid to explain the situation. In the apology, Nikon said that the female photographers [it had] invited for this meet were unable to attend."And we acknowledge that we did not put enough focus on this area,” the apology read. Nikon also added that it “appreciates the support” from its photography community to see more female representation in its campaign, and thanked the community for raising the issue and “challenging” them to do more to support female creative talent.Here is the full apology:Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We really appreciate the support from our photography community. pic.twitter.com/e78qp4Q08a— Nikon Asia (@NikonAsia) September 13, 2017However, despite its attempt at making peace, many netizens and female photographers accused the company of making “excuses”, and showed their disbelief that all women photographers were unavailable. Nikon, your "excuse" that ALL women invited couldn't make it is ridiculous and you know it. You need to fire your marketing dept. #dicks — SW_Photography (@valerie_millett) September 15, 2017How many women did you invite? Your letter fails to recognize the harm caused here and lacks details for meaningful change.— Melissa Bender (@mbenderphoto) September 13, 2017Marketing has reached out to Nikon for comment.Currently, Nikon's campaign features 32 male photographers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Middle East and Africa. The campaign aims to promote the versatility and the diversity of images the camera is capable of.This is not the first time the camera brand has come in focus for the wrong reason. In the past, Nikon had unfortunately featured a competitor's camera in one of its ads. The mistake was spotted by Twitter user David McDonald, who put up an image of the mistake - which showcases a Fujifilm camera on a Nikon ad. The boo-boo followed a social media backlash the camera company faced after it awarded a winning prize to a social media user who submitted what netizens claim was a digitally altered image.