How Caroline Gutman captured the dignity of Epstein’s survivors

Portraits byCaroline Gutman

In all the stories following the revelations from the files of Jeffrey Epstein, we have become used to seeing only the men – that grim procession of gurning millionaires and sweaty plutocrats – who were on the plane or at the townhouse or who visited the island.

The women and girls in those Polaroid scenes are often redacted – and the black squares over their faces have come to seem emblematic of the status they were afforded not only in Epstein’s world, where they were nameless figures to be trafficked and abused, but also in the reporting of it.

When photographer Caroline Gutman was asked to make these portraits of women who lived through that trauma she was determined to recast that narrative, to give each of them their proper humanity and dignity. The women had come together for a programme on NBC News in September last year in order – as one them, Jess Michaels, said – “to speak out, to be fuelled by each other’s voices in a way that I don’t think we’ve had the opportunity to do in the past.” Lisa Philips, another of those who came forward, described their collective mission as “accountability… to get people held accountable for what they did and what we have been suffering through for the last 15 or 20 years”.

One of the women, Wendy Avis, talked for the first time about how she had been coerced into Epstein’s Florida home as a 14-year-old; she had, she said, “buried Jeffrey Epstein’s memory, his name” but now she was ready to acknowledge that reality for the first time.

It felt to Gutman like a historic moment, and she wanted to capture that sense in her pictures. “We were in the midst of the details being released,” she recalls, “and it felt incredibly important to make portraits of these strong individuals and to represent their resilience in coming forward, not only as survivors of Epstein and Maxwell, but also on behalf of other women who had experienced sexual violence on behalf of other women who have experienced sex trafficking.” She did not have long to take the pictures, but the power of them, and of that moment, has seen them shortlisted for a Sony award for best portraits of last year. “With a sense of defiance,” Gutman says, “these women were reclaiming the narrative, rejecting helpless victimhood, and seeking overdue justice.”

Gutman is a finalist in the Professional competition, Sony world photography awards 2026 exhibition at Somerset House, from 17 April to 4 May. Use the promo code OBSERVER15 for a 15% discount on tickets to the exhibition