Last week I gave a presentation at ETSU (Eastern Tennessee State University) on influential women photographers during the first 100 years of photography. 

 

One of my favorite photographers was Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952).  Along with being a great photographer she was one of the hardest working people I've ever encountered.   

 

She attended art school in Paris from 1883-1885 and was twenty-one years old when she returned home to Washington DC determined to make a living from her art.  She began by illustrating magazines but soon became interested in photography. 

 

By 1888 she was photographing at the Capitol, making images of presidents and their families, successfully photographing under the ground in coal mines and Mammoth Cave, and writing magazine articles that featured her images.   

 

She also worked hard to encourage women to consider photography as a profession and promoted six of the best photographers in a series of articles for The Ladies' Home Journal that ran from May 1901 thru January 1902.                

 

Later in life she made images of historically important structures throughout the south for the University of Virginia, Carnegie, etc.

 

I discovered during my research that some of the images she made in South Carolina were made in the same locations I had photographed.  Below are some of these images.  It was a fascinating realization that I set up my tripod in the same places she had. 

 

Take care,

Jeffrey