I am in tears. I went to the wiki entry for female photographers (“Women photographers”) looking for information on the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (here’s one of her most striking images). I looked through the rest of the page. 
I went to the “Early Contributors” section to find Margaret. I expected to find a handful of other female photographers in the 19th century. I thought, like film directing, photography wasn’t something women were a part of. I was very wrong. [Minna Keene]
There were hundreds of professional female photographers working in the 19th century. HUNDREDS. And what’s more, women were a part of photography *from the very beginning of photography*. [Constance Fox Talbot]
And I am crying because I feel I’ve been lied to through an attitude, the assumption that the camera in my hands makes me a tourist—a literal one or, more generally, someone visiting a world which isn’t mine. “No, let me. Here’s how you do it.” [Gertrude Käsebier]
“Oh that’s a useful skill to learn. Can I see them?” (No, it’s film). “Oh! Like, proper photographic film? Really? That’s quite expensive isn’t it? Why bother with that!” [Eveleen Myers]
[at the sight of my father’s telephoto lens on the end of my camera] “What on earth are you doing with that thing?! Mind where you point it!” [Clementina Hawarden]
You can beg people all you like to respect women, but when faced with someone who has the power to summarise their image, people will show their true selves. They’ll tell themselves that the captured light is blurred, false. Your eye is false. [Zaïda Ben-Yusuf]
Your eye is false, or, more likely, you don’t have an eye, aren’t able to compose the elements of reality into composition; you’re holding it wrong, you shouldn’t be holding it; won’t talk about ISO in case they confuse you. [Mary Dillwyn]
Women were never photographers. They didn’t contribute to the science or the art of it. Women don’t hold cameras, they only hold onto them for the men and look through the little window. EXCEPT THEY DID. [Emma Barton]
Women have been photographers since its invention. They saw AND UNDERSTOOD the witchcraft of catching the breath in the lungs of a person and pinning it to a page with ink, and learned and carried out these techniques themselves. [Frances Benjamin Johnston]
Women approached, tried at, experimented with the technical process and the individual artistry of photography.
This was defiance. They were not supposed to be framing these images, telling these stories, communicating their inner world through light. [Emily Pitchford]
This was defiance. They were not supposed to be framing these images, telling these stories, communicating their inner world through light. [Emily Pitchford]
But they did. Women did. And they do. I had been told differently. I had seen cameramen, seen cameras and men as a natural pairing.
I had assumed men were lending me their cameras. They are mine. This is my word too, and my light. [Anna Atkins]
I had assumed men were lending me their cameras. They are mine. This is my word too, and my light. [Anna Atkins]
Here’s a much higher resolution version of this last image by Anna Atkins (I tweeted all of this at 2am through tears)—this is a ”cameraless photograph” using the cyanotype process, where objects are placed on light sensitive paper and exposed to the sun.
