R
RML
Guest
We've had a thread on women RFF members and it seems pretty clear RFF is seriously underprivileged. Some of the members here have women photographer friends but many don't. It seems either women are just not interested in discussing cameras and photography, or there are just very few women photographers. I leave the conclusions to each and everyone of you.
I believe coincidences don't exist so I wasn't too surprised to read that thread while I was reading the book Against the odds: women pioneers in the first hundred years of photography by Martin W. Sandler.
The book's title grabbed my attention in the shop and made me buy it. It was a good buy. The book is devided into eight chapters , covering the early beginnings of photography, portraiture, photography as art, documentary, the native Americans in photography, landscape and nature, photogrpahy for the printed media, and experimental and innovations in photography. Each of these chapters tells how women photographers played significant rolls in each field.
Well-known women photographers like Dorothea lange, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Imogen Cunningham and Margaret Bourke-White have, of course, a place in this book as do largely unkmown women like Frances Benjamin Johnston, Evelyn Cameron, Elizabeth Ellen Roberts, Lotte Jacobi, Getrude Käsebier, Doris Ulmann, Consuelo Kanaga, Alice Austin, Amelia C van Buren, Jane Reece, Toni Frissell, Lisette Model, Marion Post Wolcott, Marion Palfi, Laura Gilpin, Florence Randall, Lily White, Virna Haffer, Ruth Bernard, Esther Bubley, Charlotte Corpron, Barbara Morgan, Sonya Noskowiak, and many many others.
This book truly is an ode to all women photographers, famous or unknown, past or present. The biographies are necessarily limited in length and scope, and the number of photos by each named woman is usually limited to one, or two at the most. These limitations are perhaps one of the strong points of this book: it makes you want to know more about these women and their work.
The book is also solely concerned with women from the United States; no mentioning of women from the rest of the American continents, Europe, Africa or Asia. This limited scope is quite useful for the book: it gives a clear starting point for a thread that runs through a single nation's history, from the frontier days of the 19th century till about the 1950s. It leaves, however, the reader wishing to know more about photographers in genreal, and women photographers specifically, from other countries, cultures and continents.
The book is well written and seemingly well-researched without becoming too academic or high brow. In my opinion, this is one of the nicest photography books I've read in a long time, and it definitely deserves its place on my book shelf.
I believe coincidences don't exist so I wasn't too surprised to read that thread while I was reading the book Against the odds: women pioneers in the first hundred years of photography by Martin W. Sandler.
The book's title grabbed my attention in the shop and made me buy it. It was a good buy. The book is devided into eight chapters , covering the early beginnings of photography, portraiture, photography as art, documentary, the native Americans in photography, landscape and nature, photogrpahy for the printed media, and experimental and innovations in photography. Each of these chapters tells how women photographers played significant rolls in each field.
Well-known women photographers like Dorothea lange, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Imogen Cunningham and Margaret Bourke-White have, of course, a place in this book as do largely unkmown women like Frances Benjamin Johnston, Evelyn Cameron, Elizabeth Ellen Roberts, Lotte Jacobi, Getrude Käsebier, Doris Ulmann, Consuelo Kanaga, Alice Austin, Amelia C van Buren, Jane Reece, Toni Frissell, Lisette Model, Marion Post Wolcott, Marion Palfi, Laura Gilpin, Florence Randall, Lily White, Virna Haffer, Ruth Bernard, Esther Bubley, Charlotte Corpron, Barbara Morgan, Sonya Noskowiak, and many many others.
This book truly is an ode to all women photographers, famous or unknown, past or present. The biographies are necessarily limited in length and scope, and the number of photos by each named woman is usually limited to one, or two at the most. These limitations are perhaps one of the strong points of this book: it makes you want to know more about these women and their work.
The book is also solely concerned with women from the United States; no mentioning of women from the rest of the American continents, Europe, Africa or Asia. This limited scope is quite useful for the book: it gives a clear starting point for a thread that runs through a single nation's history, from the frontier days of the 19th century till about the 1950s. It leaves, however, the reader wishing to know more about photographers in genreal, and women photographers specifically, from other countries, cultures and continents.
The book is well written and seemingly well-researched without becoming too academic or high brow. In my opinion, this is one of the nicest photography books I've read in a long time, and it definitely deserves its place on my book shelf.
