The Girl Behind the Camera: Women – Masters of Photography

When you see a beautiful moment captured in time and saved for future generations to see, how often do you ask yourself- who took this photo? Probably not often enough. This is a short story about the ladies behind the camera who managed to succeed in a very male-dominated profession. This is a feature about women whom we today call the masters of photography.

Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her urban photography. Her most notable work is that of New York City architecture. She photographed a number of Manhattan neighborhoods and buildings that are now destroyed which contributes to the great value of her work. In the early beginning, her first larger New York City project did not have any financial support, and she supported herself with teaching and doing commercial photography. This later developed into her greatest project “Changing New York” when she was hired by the Federal Art Project.

Margaret Bourke-White

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Bourke-White was a documentary photographer who gained worldwide fame by being the first foreign photographer allowed to take pictures of Soviet industry. She’s also known as the first female war correspondent and the first female allowed to work in a combat zone during World War II. Bourke-White was portrayed twice in the popular culture, by Candice Bergen in the film Gandhi and by Farrah Fawcett in the television movie, Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White. Most of her photographs are now housed in Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress and Brooklyn Museum.

Julia Margaret Cameron

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Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer best known for her portraits of celebrities. She had a short career as a photographer and she started taking photographs at age 48 when she got a camera as a birthday present. Her work was not appreciated in her day, but later on she became widely recognized for her closely cropped portraits. Her great-niece Virginia Wolf described her as Mrs. Talent among her sisters, where one was Beauty, the other one was Dash, since Cameron was considered to be the ugly duckling in the sister trio.

Dorothea Lange

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Lange is considered one of the most influential documentary photographers and photo journalists of all time. She’s famous for her serious of photographs depicting the Great Depression era. Lange was educated in photography at Columbia University. After the attack on Pearl Harbor she gave up on her Guggenheim Fellowship and decided to take photographs of Japanese- Americans who were being forcedly evacuated to relocation camps. In 2008 Lange was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

Helen Levitt

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This is another photographer whose work is notable because of her New York City street photography. She is a self-taught photographer who dropped out of high-school to pursue her passion. She started first as a commercial photographer. She had a very long active career that lasted for over 70 years.

Cindy Sherman

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Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and movie director. She is famous for her conceptual portraits and for challenging certain issues on the role of women in society. In May 2011 one of her photographs was sold at Christi’s in New York for over 3 million dollars which was the second highest price ever paid for a photograph at auction. She normally takes pictures of herself wearing different costumes. She does her make-up and wardrobe for the photo shoot all by herself. Sherman is often referenced in popular culture by various artists.

Cover photo: www.artforbreakfast.com

About the author

Lisa

Lisa is a young lawyer with various interests and hobbies to keep her mind off her work at times. She is a true fan of contemporary American literature, European movies, Asian food, African Wildlife and all those little things in life that make us genuinely happy.

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