List of American women photographers

A

Kathryn Abbe (born 1919), worked for Vogue in the early 1940s, later freelance, subject include children, musicians and actors

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991), black-and-white photography of New York's architecture in the 1930s, part of the straight photography movement

Harriet Chalmers Adams (1875–1937), explorer whose expedition photographs were published in National Geographic

Marian Hooper Adams (1843–1885), early portrait photographer, also local landscapes

Lynsey Addario (born 1973), photojournalist often focusing on the role of women in traditional societies

Laura Aguilar (born 1959), strong feminist focus

Lili Almog (born 1961), Israeli-American photographer, work includes nuns and Chinese Muslims

Nina Alovert (born 1935), Russian-American ballet photographer, writer

Sama Raena Alshaibi (born 1973), see Palestine

Jane Fulton Alt (born 1951), documented Hurricane Katrina

Nancy Lee Andrews (born 1947), fashion, music covers

Eleanor Antin (born 1935), also works with video, film, performance and drawing

Amy Arbus (born 1954), a New York City–based photographer

Diane Arbus (1923–1971), black-and-white photographs of deviant and marginal people

Laura Adams Armer (1874–1963), portraiture in San Francisco, images of the Navajo

Eve Arnold (1913–2012), photojournalist with Magnum Photos

Kristen Ashburn (born 1973), photojournalist covering AIDS in southern Africa, tuberculosis and Hurricane Katrina

Jane Evelyn Atwood (born 1947), documentary photographer living in Paris

Ellen Auerbach (1906–2004), German-born Jewish immigrant, remembered for pre-war work in her Berlin studio

Alice Austen (1866–1952), from Staten Island, producing some 8,000 photographs from 1884

Elizabeth Axtman (born 1980), emphasis on race in American culture

B

Catharine Weed Barnes (1851–1913), early female editor of photographic journals, strong supporter of women photographers

Tina Barney (born 1945), large-scale portraits of family and friends

Martine Barrat (date of birth unknown), see France

Ruth-Marion Baruch (1922–1997), series on the Black Panthers and the San Francisco Bay area

Lillian Bassman (1917–2012), early fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar

Erica Baum (born 1961), New York photographer using printed paper and language as subject

Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942), born in Canada, first published female photojournalist in the United States

Carol Beckwith (born 1945), photographer of the indigenous tribal cultures of Africa

Vanessa Beecroft (born 1969), see Italy

Zaida Ben-Yusuf (1869–1933), portraits of notable Americans at the turn of the 19th–20th century, portrait gallery in New York from 1897

Lynne Bentley-Kemp (born 1952), fine arts photographer, photography educator, and researcher

Berry Berenson (1948–2001), freelance photographer publishing in Life, Glamour, Vogue and Newsweek

Nina Berman (born 1960), documentary photographer, military focus

Ruth Bernhard (1905–2006), nude photography of women and commercial photography in Hollywood

Ania Bien (born 1946), Polish-American photographer now in Amsterdam, focus on discrimination and refugees

Joan E. Biren (born 1946), focus on lesbians and feminism

Nadine Blacklock (1953–1998), nature photographer around Lake Superior

Julie Blackmon (born 1966), children and family life

Andrea Blanch (born 1946), portraits of celebrities, especially Italian men

Lucienne Bloch (1909–1999), Swiss-born American artist and photographer, remembered for association with Diego Rivera

Gay Block (born 1942), portrait photographer of Jewish life in Texas, Miami Beach, and Christian Rescuers from WWII; has published several photobooks

Debra Bloomfield (born 1952), has worked in landscape since 1989; recent work has been described as "reflective activism"

Thérèse Bonney (1894–1978), photojournalist remembered for her images of the Russian-Finnish front in World War II

Alice Boughton (c.1867–1943), theatrical portraits, worked with Gertrude Käsebier, member of the Photo-Secession movement

Margaret Bourke-White (1906–1971), first foreigner to photograph Soviet industry, first female war correspondent and first woman photographer for Life

Louise Arner Boyd (1887–1972), explorer who took hundreds of photographs of the Arctic, detailed photographic documentation of Poland in 1934

Louise Boyle (1910–2005), documented African-American farm workers in Arkansas during the Great Depression

Marilyn Bridges (born 1948), ancient sites around the world

Sheila Pree Bright (born 1967), fine art photographer

Anne Brigman (1869–1950), one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement, images of nude women (including self-portraits) from 1900 to 1920

Charlotte Brooks (born 1918), photojournalist, staff photographer for Look

Ellen Brooks (born 1946), pro-filmic approach, often photographing through screens

Kate Brooks (born 1977), photojournalist specializing in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Adrien Broom (born 1980), fashion and fine art photographer specializing in images of young women

Esther Bubley (1921–1998), expressive photos of ordinary people, later specializing in children in hospitals and other medical themes

Sonja Bullaty (1923 - 2000), photojournalist and landscape photographer

Elizabeth Buehrmann (c. 1886–c. 1963), pioneer of home portraits

Shirley Burman (born 1934), women in railroad history

Eleanor Butler Alexander-Roosevelt (1888–1960), images of dignitaries, travel photos of Europe and Asia

C

Evelyn Cameron (1868–1928), British born photographer who moved to Terry, Montana where she documented everyday life in the Old West

Marion Carpenter (1920–2002), the first female national press photographer and the first woman to cover the White House

Elinor Carucci (born 1971), an Israeli-American who has exhibited widely since 1997 and now teaches photography in New York City

Dickey Chapelle (1919–1965), photojournalist known for her work as a war correspondent in World War II and the Vietnam War

Rose Clark (1852–1942), pictorialist photographer

Lynne Cohen (born 1944), large prints of domestic and institutional interiors, now lives in Montreal

Carolyn Cole (born 1961), staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times

Marjory Collins (1912–1985), photojournalist, covered the home front during World War II

Nancy Ford Cones (1869–1962), early photographer from Loveland, Ohio, where she documented country life

Lois Conner (born 1951), noted particularly for her platinum print landscapes that she produces with a 7" x 17" format banquet camera

Linda Connor (born 1944), spiritual locations

Marjorie Content (1895–1984), Native Americans

Martha Cooper (born 1940s), staff photographer from the New York Post in the 1970s

Kate Cordsen (born 1964), known for large format landscapes

Tee Corinne (born 1943), lesbian photographer

Marie Cosindas (born 1925), still life and color portraits, one of the first the exhibit color photographs at MoMA

Honey Lee Cottrell, lesbian photographer, known for her work in On Our Backs

Renée Cox (born 1960), Jamaican-born politically motivated photographer

Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976), known for her botanical photography, nudes and industrial landscapes

D

Louise Dahl-Wolfe (1895–1989), fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar

Judy Dater (born 1941), best known for her book Imogen and Twinka about the photographer Imogen Cunningham

Lynn Davis (born 1944), large-scale black-and-white photographs specializing in monumental landscapes and architecture

Liliane de Cock (1939–2013), Belgian-American photographer, Guggenheim fellow

Mary Devens (1857–1920), prominent pictorial photographer of the early 20th century

Maggie Diaz (born 1925), see Australia

Jessica Dimmock (born 1978), documentary photographer, covered drug addicts in New York over eight years

Carolyn Drake (born 1971), documentary photographer, particularly of central Asia

E

Susan Eakins (1851–1938), artist and photographer, wife of Thomas Eakins, maintained her own studio using photography as a basis for her art

Sandra Eisert (born 1952), first White House picture editor in 1974

Cynthia Elbaum (1966–1994), photojournalist killed while working in Chechnya

Jill Enfield (born 1954), hand coloring artist best known for her work in alternative photographic processes

Marion Ettlinger (born 1949), author portraits for book jackets

F

Emma Justine Farnsworth (1860–1952), photographer whose works were displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) and the Paris Exposition (1900)

Deanne Fitzmaurice (born 1957), photojournalist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2005

Trude Fleischmann (1895–1990), see Austria

Mollie Fly (1847–1925), early Arizona photographer

Susan Ford (born 1957), photojournalist, daughter of President Gerald Ford

Mary Lou Foy (born 1944), picture editor at the Washington Post

Jill Freedman (born 1939), New York–based documentary photographer, known for photographs of firefighters, street cops, circus life

Toni Frissell (1907–1988), fashion photography, World War II photographs

Eva Fuka (born 1927), a native of Prague, she is noted for her melancholic works and surreal effects

G

Helen K. Garber (born 1954), black and white city landscapes

Emme Gerhard (1872–1946), worked with her sister Mayme in St. Louis, images of Native Americans and other ethnic groups

Mayme Gerhard (1876–1955), worked with her sisiter Emme in St. Louis, images of Native Americans and other ethnic groups

Wilda Gerideau-Squires (born 1946), African-American fine art photographer

Paola Gianturco (born 1939), photojournalist covering women in difficulty

Laura Gilpin (1891–1979), Native Americans (Navajo) and Pueblo and Southwestern landscapes

Barbara Gluck (born 1938), photojournalism, especially Vietnam

Nan Goldin (born 1953), gay and transsexual communities, New York's hard-drug subculture, skylines

Suzy Gorman (born 1962), celebrity portraits

Karen Graffeo (born 1963), portraits, documentary

Katy Grannan (born 1969), portraits

Beth Green (born 1949), photojournalist

Jill Greenberg (born 1967), portraits, covers

Lauren Greenfield (born 1966), documentary photographer and filmmaker

Caroline Gurrey (1875–1927), portraitist in Hawaii at the beginning of the 20th century, remembered for her series on mixed-race Hawaiian children

Carol Guzy (born 1956), Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post photographer

H

Gail Albert Halaban (born 1970), staged portraits

Masumi Hayashi (1945-2006), photo-collage works on topics such as Japanese internment camps, abandoned prisons, city works

Alexandra Hedison (born 1969), abstract landscapes

Diana Mara Henry (born 1948), photojournalist

Lena Herzog (born 1970), Russian-born documentary and fine art photographer

Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1870–1956), architectural and landscape photographer

Elizabeth Heyert (born 1951), experimental portraiture

Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946), architectural coverage throughout the United States

Martha Holmes (1923-2006), photojournalist, staff photographer and later freelancer for Life

Roni Horn (born 1955), explores the mutable nature of art combining photography with drawing, sculpture and installations, also notable photo books

I

Edith Irvine (1884–1949), documentary work including the San Francisco earthquake

J

Lotte Jacobi (1896–1990), see Germany

Marcey Jacobson (1911–2009), indigenous peoples of southern Mexico

Belle Johnson (1864–1945), portraiture, including character studies, and photographs of animals (especially cats)

Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864–1952), early photojournalist, first woman to have a studio in Washington D.C., portraits of celebrities for magazines

Sarah Louise Judd (1802–1886), early photographer in Minnesota taking daguerrotypes in 1848

K

Consuelo Kanaga (1894–1978), portraits including African-Americans

Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934), very influential, strong supporter of women photographers, her work covered Native Americans, portraits, commercially very successful

Emy Kat (born 1959), fashion, advertising

Mary Morgan Keipp (1875–1961), art photography, African-Americans

Miru Kim (born 1981), art photography

Yunghi Kim (born 1962), Photojournalism

Helen Johns Kirtland (1890–1979), photojournalist and war correspondent, coverage of World War I

Deborah Copaken Kogan (born 1966), photojournalist

Barbara Kruger (born 1945), conceptual black-and-white photography

Justine Kurland (born 1969), fine art photography

L

Sarah Ladd (1860–1927), early pictorial and landscape photographer

Kay Lahusen (born 1930), first openly gay photojournalist of the gay rights movement

Wendy Sue Lamm (born 1964), photojournalist noted for her images of Palestine

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965), documentary photographer and photojournalist, covered the Great Depression

Alma Lavenson (1897–1989), documented California's Gold Rush

Nina Leen (died 1995), Russian-born American photographer, avid contributor to Life, remembered above all for her photographs of animals

Adelaide Hanscom Leeson (1875–1931), early photo-illustrated books

Annie Leibovitz (born 1949), portrait photographer, worked for Rolling Stone magazine and later Vanity Fair

Zoe Leonard (born 1961), photography of New York City, photos of the fictional Fae Richards for the film The Watermelon Woman

Rebecca Lepkoff (born 1916), street scenes on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1940s

Isa Leshko (born 1971), fine art photographer known for her Elderly Animals series

Sherrie Levine (born 1947), appropriation photography

Helen Levitt (1907–2009), street photography around New York City

Jacqueline Livingston (born 1943), women's role, sexual intimacy

Ruth Harriet Louise (1903–1940), first woman photographer active in Hollywood, running Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's portrait studio from 1925 to 1930

Elizabeth Gill Lui (born 1951), abstract collage

M

Vivian Maier (1926–2009), unknown during her lifetime, her street photographs of Chicago were first published in 2011

Rose Mandel (1910-2002), Polish-born photographer based in Berkeley, won Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967

Sally Mann (born 1951), large black-and-white photographs of young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death

Malerie Marder (born 1971), human intimacy

Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015), known for photojournalism, portraits and advertising photography, also covered homelessness, drug addiction and prostitution

Diana Markosian (born 1989), see United States

Margrethe Mather (1886–1952), collaborated with Edward Weston

Rebecca Matlock (born 1928), images from Moscow and Czechoslovakia

Kate Matthews (1870–1956), photographed scenes of everyday life in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, also as illustrations for Annie Fellows Johnston's The Little Colonel books

Dona Ann McAdams (born 1954), performance photography

Linda McCartney (1942–1998), photographed pop stars in the 1960s

Melodie McDaniel (born 1967), celebrity portraits, fashion, advertising

Laura McPhee (born 1958), art photography

Susan Meiselas (born 1948), documentary photographer working for Magnum Photos, covering human rights issues in Latin America and the Nicaraguan Revolution

Florence Meyer (1911–1962), celebrity portrait photographer

Hansel Mieth (1909–1998), born in Germany, joined Life magazine in 1937 until the early 1950s, photographing the Japanese at internment camps during World War II

Lee Miller (1907–1977), fashion photographer in Paris, war correspondent for Vogue covering the London blitz and the liberation of Paris

Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier (born 1966), see Mexico

Lisette Model (1906–1983), born in Austria, first photographed the upper classes in Nice in 1934, later worked for PM magazine in New York, also publishing in Harper's Bazaar

Andrea Modica (born 1960), photography professor

Jeannette Montgomery Barron (born 1956), portraits

Shirlie Montgomery (1918 – 2012) San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area news, wrestling in the 1960s

Barbara Morgan (1900–1992), grapherhed modern dancers, co-founder of Aperture

Lida Moser (born 1920), photojournalism, documentaries and street photography, contributed to Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look and Esquire

Helen Messinger Murdoch (1862–1956), pioneered the use of autochromes in travel photography

N

Nelly's (1899–1998), see Greece

Bea Nettles (born 1948), alternative techniques

Liz Nielsen (active since 2002), traditional analogue photographer

Anne Noggle (1922–2005), a photographer after a career as an aviator, depicted the ageing process of women and as curator introduced other women photographers to the public

Dorothy Norman (1905–1997), amateur portrait photographer

O

Catherine Opie (born 1961), addresses documentary photography, professor of photography at UCLA

Kei Orihara (born 1948), see Japan

Ruth Orkin (1921–1985), photojournalist contributing to Life, Look and Ladies' Home Journal, later teaching photography in New York City

P

Marvin Breckinridge Patterson (1905–2002), photojournalist, published world travel photographs in Vogue, National Geographic, Look, Life, Town & Country, and Harper's Bazaar

Stacy Pearsall (born 1980), military photographer, twice winner of the NPPA Military Photographer of the Year award

Sandra-Lee Phipps (born 1959), photographed first public appearance of R.E.M. and photographed their early album art; staff photographer at The Village Voice; faculty member at Savannah College of Art and Design

Nata Piaskowski (1912–2004), see Poland

Dulce Pinzon (born 1974), see Mexico

Sylvia Plachy (born 1943), born in Hungary, has published photo essays and portraits in The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice and The New Yorker, also personal coverage of Central Europe

Anita Pollitzer (1894–1975), associated with Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

Greta Pratt (born 1955), known for documenting staged American history

Melanie Pullen (born 1975), specializes in large prints (from four to ten feet) of crime scenes, specially set up using models and crew

R

Jane Reece (1868–1961), pictorial photographer, portraits, autochromes

Marcia Reed (born 1948), first female still photographer of the International Cinematographers Guild in 1973 and to win the Society of Operating Cameramen's Lifetime Achievement Award (still photographer) in 2000.

Andrea Star Reese (born 1952), documentary photographer, photojournalist

Nancy Rexroth (born 1946), plastic camera work

Cherie Roberts (born 1978), nude models

Ruth Robertson (1905–1998), photojournalist remembered for her work on the Angel Falls in Venezuela, establishing them as the tallest in the world

Ann Rosener (1914–2012), photographed home front activities for the Farm Security Administration in 1942–43

Barbara Rosenthal (born 1948), avant-garde artist, using photography along with video, installation and digital media to achieve surreal photography

Louise Rosskam (1910–2003), documented life during the Great Depression

Marissa Roth (born 1958), photojournalist who was part of the team who won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

Eva Rubinstein (born 1933), intimate views of people and (often empty) interiors

Julia Ann Rudolph (c. 1820–c. 1890), studio photographer active in New York and California for over 40 years

Liza Ryan (born 1965), film and photography installations

S

Virginia Schau, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1954

Stefanie Schneider (born 1968), see Germany

Collier Schorr (born 1963), portraits of young men and women

Sarah Choate Sears (1858–1935), portraits and still lifes from the 1890s

Cindy Sherman (born 1954), conceptual portraits, staged photographs of herself

Elizabeth Siegfried (born 1955), photographer of self-portraiture, photographic narrative and meditative landscapes

Marilyn Silverstone (1929–1999), photojournalist who came to specialize in India and the Himalayas

Taryn Simon (born 1975), creator of projects involving large numbers of photographs

Lorna Simpson (born 1960), documentary street photographer who moved into ethnic divisions and racism in the 1980s

Sandy Skoglund (born 1946), surrealist photographer creating tableaux based on her own sets

Polly Smith (1908–1980), photographed life in Texas in the 1930s

Rosalind Solomon (born 1940), New York based photographer of the world, most notably Peru, in square monochrome

Eve Sonneman, artist, photographer, working in colour and black and white

Melissa Springer (born 1956), photojournalist

Ellen Stagg (born 1978), advertising, fashion

Susan Hacker Stang (born 1949), alternative cameras, also academic

Sally Stapleton (born 1957), executive photo editor at Associated Press until 2003

Maggie Steber, documentary photographer for National Geographic

Gitel Steed (1914–1977), anthropologist, ethnological photographer

Amy Stein (born 1970), staged views, frequently with animals

Nellie Stockbridge (c. 1868–1965), early Idaho mining district photographer

Zoe Strauss (born 1970), shuttered buildings, empty parking lots and vacant meeting halls in South Philadelphia

Nancy M. Stuart, portrait photographer; photography educator and administrator

Rachel Sussman (born 1975), living organisms at least 2,000 years old

T

Maggie Taylor (born 1961), artistic digital imaging

Joyce Tenneson (born 1945), fine art photographer, often of nude or semi-nude women, with cover images on a range of periodicals including Time, Life, and Entertainment Weekly

Beatrice Tonnesen (1871–1958), early views of live models for advertising

Barbara Traub, street photography, landscapes, portraits

Mellon Tytell (born 1945), award-winning fashion and editorial photographer, did documentary series on Haiti and portraits of figures from the Beat Generation

U

Doris Ulmann (1884–1934), known for her portraits of craftsmen and musicians from Appalachia

Penelope Umbrico (born 1957), known for her abstract photographs of commonplace objects

V

Raissa Venables (born 1977), surreal interiors

Ami Vitale (born 1971), photojournalist and documentary work, National Geographic photographer

W

Elizabeth Flint Wade (1849–1915), pictorial work exhibited jointly with Rose Clark

Eva Watson-Schütze (1867–1935), pictorial-style portraits, founding member of Photo-Secession

Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953), concerned with the problems of African Americans, often staging sets for her images

Alisa Wells (1927–1987), experimental photography

Annie Wells (born 1954), Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist

Eudora Welty (1909–2001), documentary work on the rural poor in Mississippi from the early 1930s and the effects of the Great Depression

Myra Albert Wiggins (1869–1956), pictorial work, member of the Photo-Secession movement

Hannah Wilke (1940–1993), performance artist and photographer

Laura Wilson (born 1939), photographic essayist

Deborah Willis (born 1948)

Sharon Wohlmuth (born 1946), photojournalist and best-seller author

Marion Post Wolcott (1910–1990), worked for Farm Security Administration documenting poverty during the Great Depression

Linda Wolf (born 1950), early work on French covers village life, later bus benches in the United States and multicultural portraits for Los Angeles billboards

Penny Wolin (born 1953), portraiture, visual anthropology, concerned with documenting American Jewish culture

Francesca Woodman (1958–1981), black-and-white photographs of herself and nude female models

Y

Yelena Yemchuk (born 1970), fashion, advertising and album photography, also videos