Wirja
A female lens
The first women of photography
Who was the first woman to take a photograph?
The camera as we know it was developed in 1822. An early form of photograph – the daguerreotype, developed by Louis Daguerre – became popular in the 1830s. In the 1840s, photographic technology progressed again when a camera invented by Alexander Wolcott produced photographs that didn’t fade quickly.
How did women start to use this new invention? And who was the first woman to take a photograph? That’s not an easy question to answer.
Was it Constance Fox Talbot?
It could have been Constance Fox Talbot in 1839 but if it was, that very first photograph of hers no longer exists as proof.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Fox Talbot was indeed the first woman to take a photograph because she was married to William Henry Fox Talbot. He was a man of many interests, and a great experimenter. When trying to capture nature’s beauty on paper using a camera lucida (a drawing aid that reflects an image down onto paper) and a camera obscura (a box that projects an image onto a wall or surface), he became frustrated by the rapidly fading and inexact images. William pondered on ‘how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper.’1 So he invented a way to do it and presented it to the Royal Society – scrambling to do so after Louis Daguerre’s invention came to light in January 1839.
Constance Fox Talbot had access to the equipment and a close relationship with someone who knew how to operate it, so she could very easily have taken a photograph too – if she wanted to. And that’s where there’s some debate – was she a keen photographer herself, or just a dutiful supporter of her husband’s passion? We can’t know for sure.
Fox Talbot’s letters suggest she was taking photographs in May 1839. She writes that she had been ‘labouring hard at the Photographs’ but hadn’t had much luck.2 We don’t know how many photographs Constance took in total - proof exists for just one. Taken in 1843, it captures some typeset lines from Thomas Moore’s poem, 'Tis the last rose of summer'. It’s possible that there are more of her photographs in existence but that they have been wrongly attributed to her husband. We’ll never know.
Could it be Sarah Anne Bright?
Another contender for the title of first woman to take a photograph is Sarah Anne Bright. She certainly holds the title for earliest surviving photograph taken by a woman. It’s only recently that she’s been given this credit. In 2015, her initials were found on an image in an auction lot. In fact, one of the photographs in this collection was originally thought to have been taken by the aforementioned William Henry Fox Talbot, and then by Thomas Wedgwood.
This image of a leaf, which was ascribed to Sarah Anne Bright after seven years of research, is a photogram – an image made without a camera by placing objects onto light-sensitive material.
Or maybe Anna Atkins?
The third woman to take into consideration was the first person ever to publish a book with photographic illustrations. In 1843, Anna Atkins produced a book containing botanical images taken as cyanotypes – a new way to take photographs at the time. Atkins had a particular passion for algae. She took over 400 images of them and produced three volumes of ‘Photographs of British Algae - Cyanotype Impressions’. It became an important scientific resource as these types of algae had hardly been studied until they were shared in her book.
We’ve highlighted just some of the women involved in the early development of photography here but it’s important to note that at the time, it was still largely a male profession. That’s still the case today. According to one study, around 70-80% of photography graduates are women, but women only make up about 15% of the professional photography workforce.3 Another study suggests that almost half of working photographers are women – but that they earn 40% less than their male counterparts.4 So there is still some way to go.
In the next chapter, we’ll meet some of the people who paved the way to make photography a profession for women.