List of American women photographers

A

• Kathryn Abbe, worked for Vogue in the early 1940s, later freelance, subject include children, musicians and actors
• Berenice Abbott, black and white photography of New York's architecture in the 1930s, part of the straight photography movement
• Esther Henderson Abbott, first woman photographer for Arizona Highways Magazine
• Harriet Chalmers Adams, explorer whose expedition photographs were published in National Geographic
• Marian Hooper Adams, early portrait photographer, also local landscapes
• Lynsey Addario, photojournalist often focusing on the role of women in traditional societies
• Laura Aguilar, strong feminist focus
• Lili Almog, Israeli-American photographer, work includes nuns and Chinese Muslims
• Joan Almond, black and white photographer who prints her own works
• Nina Alovert, Russian-American ballet photographer, writer
• Sama Raena Alshaibi, see Palestine
• Jane Fulton Alt, documented Hurricane Katrina
• Nancy Lee Andrews, fashion, music covers
• Yvette Borup Andrews, photographed Central Asia for the American Museum of Natural History
• Eleanor Antin, also works with video, film, performance and drawing
• Amy Arbus, a New York City–based photographer
• Diane Arbus, black and white photographs of deviant and marginal people
• Laura Adams Armer, portraiture in San Francisco, images of the Navajo
• Eve Arnold, photojournalist with Magnum Photos
• Kristen Ashburn, photojournalist covering AIDS in southern Africa, tuberculosis and Hurricane Katrina
• Jane Evelyn Atwood, documentary photographer living in Paris
• Ellen Auerbach, German-born Jewish immigrant, remembered for pre-war work in her Berlin studio
• Alice Austen, from Staten Island, producing some 8,000 photographs from 1884
• Elizabeth Axtman, emphasis on race in American culture

  B

• Catharine Weed Barnes, early female editor of photographic journals, strong supporter of women photographers
• Tina Barney, large-scale portraits of family and friends
• Martine Barrat, see France
• Ruth-Marion Baruch, series on the Black Panthers and the San Francisco Bay area
• Lillian Bassman, early fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar
• Erica Baum, New York photographer using printed paper and language as subject
• Jessie Tarbox Beals, born in Canada, first published female photojournalist in the United States
• Carol Beckwith, photographer of the indigenous tribal cultures of Africa
• Vanessa Beecroft, see Italy
• Zaida Ben-Yusuf, portraits of notable Americans at the turn of the 19th–20th century, portrait gallery in New York from 1897
• Lynne Bentley-Kemp, fine arts photographer, photography educator, and researcher
• Berry Berenson, freelance photographer publishing in Life, Glamour, Vogue and Newsweek
• Nina Berman, documentary photographer, military focus
• Ruth Bernhard, nude photography of women and commercial photography in Hollywood
• Ania Bien, Polish-American photographer now in Amsterdam, focus on discrimination and refugees
• Joan E. Biren, focus on lesbians and feminism
• Nadine Blacklock, nature photographer around Lake Superior
• Julie Blackmon, children and family life
• Andrea Blanch, portraits of celebrities, especially Italian men
• Lucienne Bloch, Swiss-born American artist and photographer, remembered for association with Diego Rivera
• Gay Block, portrait photographer of Jewish life in Texas, Miami Beach, and Christian Rescuers from WWII; has published several photobooks
• Debra Bloomfield, has worked in landscape since 1989; recent work has been described as "reflective activism"
• Thérèse Bonney, photojournalist remembered for her images of the Russian-Finnish front in World War II
• Meghan Boody, surrealist photographer
• Barbara Bosworth, American artist, photographer. Bosworth works primarily with a large-format, 8x10 view camera and focuses on the relationship between humans and nature.
• Alice Boughton, theatrical portraits, worked with Gertrude Käsebier, member of the Photo-Secession movement
• Margaret Bourke-White, first foreigner to photograph Soviet industry, first female war correspondent and first woman photographer for Life
• Louise Arner Boyd, explorer who took hundreds of photographs of the Arctic, detailed photographic documentation of Poland in 1934
• Louise Boyle, documented African-American farm workers in Arkansas during the Great Depression
• Marilyn Bridges, ancient sites around the world
• Deborah Bright, is an American photographer, writer, professor, and painter specializing in critical landscape photography and queer photography and painting
• Sheila Pree Bright, fine art photographer
• Anne Brigman, one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement, images of nude women from 1900 to 1920
• Charlotte Brooks, photojournalist, staff photographer for Look
• Ellen Brooks, pro-filmic approach, often photographing through screens
• Kate Brooks, photojournalist specializing in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Adrien Broom, fashion and fine art photographer specializing in images of young women
• Esther Bubley, expressive photos of ordinary people, later specializing in children in hospitals and other medical themes
• Sonja Bullaty, photojournalist and landscape photographer
• Elizabeth Buehrmann, pioneer of home portraits
• Shirley Burman, women in railroad history
• Eleanor Butler Alexander-Roosevelt, images of dignitaries, travel photos of Europe and Asia

  C

• Evelyn Cameron, British born photographer who moved to Terry, Montana where she documented everyday life in the Old West
• Angela Cappetta
• Ellen Carey, abstract photographer
• Marion Carpenter, the first female national press photographer and the first woman to cover the White House
• Elinor Carucci, an Israeli-American who has exhibited widely since 1997 and now teaches photography in New York City
• Joan Cassis, portrait photographer
• Dickey Chapelle, photojournalist known for her work as a war correspondent in World War II and the Vietnam War
• Talia Chetrit, still life and nude photographer
• Rose Clark, pictorialist photographer
• Lynne Cohen, large prints of domestic and institutional interiors, now lives in Montreal
• Carolyn Cole, staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times
• Anne Collier, is an American visual artist working with appropriated photographic images.
• Marjory Collins, photojournalist, covered the home front during World War II
• Nancy Ford Cones, early photographer from Loveland, Ohio, where she documented country life
• Lois Conner, noted particularly for her platinum print landscapes that she produces with a 7" x 17" format banquet camera
• Linda Connor, spiritual locations
• Marjorie Content, Native Americans
• Martha Cooper, staff photographer from the New York Post in the 1970s
• Kate Cordsen, known for large format landscapes
• Tee Corinne, lesbian photographer
• Marie Cosindas, 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, Jamaican-born politically motivated photographer
• Susan Crocker, photographer documenting urban environment
• Imogen Cunningham, known for her botanical photography, nudes and industrial landscapes

  D

• Louise Dahl-Wolfe, fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar
• Deborah Dancy, African-American painter, photographer, mixed media artist
• Judy Dater, best known for her book Imogen and Twinka about the photographer Imogen Cunningham
• Diana Davies, graphic artist and photojournalist
• Lynn Davis, large-scale black-and-white photographs specializing in monumental landscapes and architecture
• Liliane de Cock, Belgian-American photographer, Guggenheim fellow
• Mary Devens, prominent pictorial photographer of the early 20th century
• Maggie Diaz, see Australia
• Jessica Dimmock, documentary photographer, covered drug addicts in New York over eight years
• Carolyn Drake, documentary photographer, particularly of central Asia
• Jeanne Dunning, photographer of the human body

  E

• Susan Eakins, artist and photographer, wife of Thomas Eakins, maintained her own studio using photography as a basis for her art
• Sarah J. Eddy, photographer of the 19th century early - 20th century, portraiture, home scenes, specializes in animals
• Dorothy Meigs Eidlitz, photographer, arts patron and women's rights advocate
• Sandra Eisert, first White House picture editor in 1974
• Cynthia Elbaum, photojournalist killed while working in Chechnya
• Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, photographer of domestic life and New England rural landscape.
• Jill Enfield, hand coloring artist best known for her work in alternative photographic processes
• Marion Ettlinger, author portraits for book jackets

  F

• Mary Anne Fackelman-Miner, photojournalist and first female White House photographer
• Emma Justine Farnsworth, photographer whose works were displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition and the Paris Exposition
• Delphine Fawundu, Brooklyn-born photographer and visual artist
• Anne Fishbein, Chicago-born photographer
• Deanne Fitzmaurice, photojournalist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2005
• Trude Fleischmann, see Austria
• Mollie Fly, early Arizona photographer
• Susan Ford, photojournalist, daughter of President Gerald Ford
• Mary Lou Foy, picture editor at the Washington Post
• Catriona Fraser, Washington, DC based photographer and art dealer
• Jill Freedman, New York–based documentary photographer, known for photographs of firefighters, street cops, circus life
• Toni Frissell, fashion photography, World War II photographs
• Eva Fuka, Czech-American, she is known for her melancholic works and surreal effects

  G

• Helen K. Garber, black and white city landscapes
• Gretchen Garner, photographer and mixed-media artist
• Helen Gatch, depicted family members and views of the Oregon coast
• Emma Jane Gay, best known for photographing the Nez Perce
• Lynn Geesaman, landscape photographer
• Emme Gerhard, worked with her sister Mayme in St. Louis, images of Native Americans and other ethnic groups
• Mayme Gerhard, worked with her sister Emme in St. Louis, images of Native Americans and other ethnic groups
• Wilda Gerideau-Squires, fine art photographer
• Paola Gianturco, photojournalist covering women in difficulty
• Laura Gilpin, Native Americans and Pueblo and Southwestern landscapes
• Barbara Gluck, photojournalism, especially Vietnam
• Nan Goldin, gay and transsexual communities, New York's hard-drug subculture, skylines
• Suzy Gorman, celebrity portraits
• Karen Graffeo, portraits, documentary
• Katy Grannan, portraits
• Beth Green, photojournalist
• Jill Greenberg, portraits, covers
• Lauren Greenfield, documentary photographer and filmmaker
• Lori Grinker, documentary photographer, artist and filmmaker
• Jan Groover, large format still life photographer
• Caroline Gurrey, portraitist in Hawaii at the beginning of the 20th century, remembered for her series on mixed-race Hawaiian children
• Carol Guzy, Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post photographer

  H

• Gail Albert Halaban, staged portraits
• Winifred Hall Allen, African-American photographer of the Harlem Renaissance
• Maggie Hallahan, photojournalist and filmmaker, UN Women, WHO
• Pauline Kruger Hamilton, Austrian court photographer
• Marie Hansen photojournalist
• Edie Harper, WWII Army Corps of Engineers photographer
• Masumi Hayashi, photo-collage works on topics such as Japanese internment camps, abandoned prisons, city works
• Alexandra Hedison, abstract landscapes
• Esther Henderson, landscape photographer
• Diana Mara Henry, photojournalist
• Lena Herzog, Russian-born documentary and fine art photographer
• Mattie Edwards Hewitt, architectural and landscape photographer
• Elizabeth Heyert, experimental portraiture
• Abigail Heyman was an American feminist and photojournalist, known for her 1974 book, Growing Up Female: A Personal Photo-Journal.
• Carol M. Highsmith, architectural coverage throughout the United States
• Evelyn Hockstein, photojournalist
• Martha Holmes, photojournalist, staff photographer and later freelancer for Life
• Roni Horn, explores the mutable nature of art combining photography with drawing, sculpture and installations, also notable photo books

  I

• Connie Imboden, photographer of nudes
• Edith Irvine, documentary work including the San Francisco earthquake

  J

• Lotte Jacobi, see Germany
• Marcey Jacobson, indigenous peoples of southern Mexico
• Acacia Johnson, polar photographer
• Belle Johnson, portraiture, including character studies, and photographs of animals
• Frances Benjamin Johnston, early photojournalist, first woman to have a studio in Washington D.C., portraits of celebrities for magazines
• Sarah Louise Judd, early photographer in Minnesota taking daguerrotypes in 1848

  K

• Consuelo Kanaga, portraits including African-Americans
• Gertrude Käsebier, very influential, strong supporter of women photographers, her work covered Native Americans, portraits, commercially very successful
• Barbara Kasten, photograms and multicolor still lifes
• Emy Kat, fashion, advertising
• Mary Morgan Keipp, art photography, African-Americans
• Miru Kim, art photography
• Helen Johns Kirtland, photojournalist and war correspondent, coverage of World War I
• Deborah Copaken Kogan, photojournalist
• Barbara Kruger, conceptual black-and-white photography
• Justine Kurland, fine art photography

  L

• Sarah Ladd, early pictorial and landscape photographer
• Kay Lahusen, first openly gay photojournalist of the gay rights movement
• Wendy Sue Lamm, photojournalist noted for her images of Palestine
• Dorothea Lange, documentary photographer and photojournalist, covered the Great Depression
• Alma Lavenson, documented California's Gold Rush
• Nina Leen, Russian-born American photographer, avid contributor to Life, remembered above all for her photographs of animals
• Adelaide Hanscom Leeson, early photo-illustrated books
• Annie Leibovitz, portrait photographer, worked for Rolling Stone magazine and later Vanity Fair
• Zoe Leonard, photography of New York City, photos of the fictional Fae Richards for the film The Watermelon Woman
• Rebecca Lepkoff, street scenes on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1940s
• Isa Leshko, fine art photographer known for her Elderly Animals series
• Sherrie Levine, appropriation photography
• Helen Levitt, street photography around New York City
• Jacqueline Livingston, women's role, sexual intimacy
• Ruth Harriet Louise, first woman photographer active in Hollywood, running Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's portrait studio from 1925 to 1930
• Layla Love, fine art photographer
• Elizabeth Gill Lui, abstract collage

  M

• Diane MacKown, portraits
• Vivian Maier, unknown during her lifetime, her street photographs of Chicago were first published in 2011
• Rose Mandel, Polish-born photographer based in Berkeley, won Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967
• Ann Mandelbaum, artist and photographer
• Sally Mann, large black-and-white photographs of young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death
• Nancy Manter, weather, the environment and landscape
• Lizbeth Marano, images from Iceland, France, Italy and Spain
• Malerie Marder, human intimacy
• Mary Ellen Mark, known for photojournalism, portraits and advertising photography, also covered homelessness, drug addiction and prostitution
• Diana Markosian, documentary/photo-essayist
• Margrethe Mather , collaborated with Edward Weston
• Jill Mathis, works based on etymology
• Rebecca Matlock, images from Moscow and Czechoslovakia
• Kate Matthews, photographed scenes of everyday life in Pewee Valley, Kentucky, also as illustrations for Annie Fellows Johnston's The Little Colonel books
• Dona Ann McAdams, performance photography
• Linda McCartney, photographed pop stars in the 1960s
• Melodie McDaniel, celebrity portraits, fashion, advertising
• Laura McPhee, art photography
• Susan Meiselas, documentary photographer working for Magnum Photos, covering human rights issues in Latin America and the Nicaraguan Revolution
• Florence Meyer, celebrity portrait photographer
• Sonia Handelman Meyer, street photographer
• Hansel Mieth, born in Germany, joined Life magazine in 1937 until the early 1950s, photographing the Japanese at internment camps during World War II
• Lee Miller, fashion photographer in Paris, war correspondent for Vogue covering the London blitz and the liberation of Paris
• Susan Mikula, photographer and artist
• Cristina Mittermeier, Mexican-American, known for images of indigenous people
• Lisette Model, 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, photography professor
• Barbara Morgan , grapherhed modern dancers, co-founder of Aperture
• Lida Moser, photojournalism, documentaries and street photography, contributed to Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look and Esquire
• Helen Messinger Murdoch, pioneered the use of autochromes in travel photography

  N

• Marilyn Nance, official photographer for the North American Zone of FESTAC 77, the Second World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture, and two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography.
• Nelly's, see Greece
• Bea Nettles, alternative techniques
• Liz Nielsen, traditional analogue photographer
• Anne Noggle, 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, amateur portrait photographer

  O

• Catherine Opie, addresses documentary photography, professor of photography at UCLA
• Kei Orihara, Japanese photographer resident in the USA for several periods
• Ruth Orkin, photojournalist contributing to Life, Look and Ladies' Home Journal, later teaching photography in New York City

  P

• Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, photojournalist, published world travel photographs in Vogue, National Geographic, Look, Life, Town & Country, and Harper's Bazaar
• Stacy Pearsall, military photographer, twice winner of the NPPA Military Photographer of the Year award
• Nata Piaskowski, see Poland
• Dulce Pinzon, see Mexico
• Sylvia Plachy, 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, associated with Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz
• Greta Pratt, known for documenting staged American history
• Melanie Pullen, specializes in large prints of crime scenes, specially set up using models and crew
• Rosamond W. Purcell, specializes in images of natural history

  R

• Rachel Raab, professional photographer and multimedia artist
• Jane Reece, pictorial photographer, portraits, autochromes
• Marcia Reed, first female still photographer of the International Cinematographers Guild in 1973 and to win the Society of Operating Cameramen Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.
• Andrea Star Reese, documentary photographer, photojournalist
• Blanche Reineke, portrait photographer, particularly of children
• Susan Ressler, photographer
• Nancy Rexroth, plastic camera work
• Cherie Roberts, nude models
• Ruth Robertson, photojournalist remembered for her work on the Angel Falls in Venezuela, establishing them as the tallest in the world
• Ann Rosener, photographed home front activities for the Farm Security Administration in 1942–43
• Barbara Rosenthal, avant-garde artist, using photography along with video, installation and digital media to achieve surreal photography
• Martha Rosler, photographer, video artist, conceptual and installation work, also known for writing
• Louise Rosskam, documented life during the Great Depression
• Eva Rubinstein, intimate views of people and interiors
• Julia Ann Rudolph, studio photographer active in New York and California for over 40 years
• Liza Ryan, film and photography installations

  S

• Virginia Schau, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography, in 1954
• Justine Schiavo-Hunt, also known as Justine Ellement, photojournalist for The Boston Herald and The Boston Globe
• Stefanie Schneider, see Germany
• Wendi Schneider, images of nature and wildlife printed on paper vellum with hand-applied layers of gold leaf
• Collier Schorr, portraits of young men and women
• Sarah Choate Sears, portraits and still lifes from the 1890s
• Cindy Sherman, conceptual portraits, staged photographs of herself, Untitled #96 sold for $3.89 million in 2011
• Editta Sherman celebrity photographer
• Elizabeth Siegfried, photographer of self-portraiture, photographic narrative and meditative landscapes
• Marilyn Silverstone, photojournalist who came to specialize in India and the Himalayas
• Kate Simon, portrait photographer known for her photographs of famous musicians and artists
• Taryn Simon, creator of projects involving large numbers of photographs
• Lorna Simpson, documentary street photographer who moved into ethnic divisions and racism in the 1980s
• Sandy Skoglund, surrealist photographer creating tableaux based on her own sets
• Dayna Smith, photojournalist who won the 1999 World Press Photo of the Year
• Polly Smith, photographed life in Texas in the 1930s
• Rosalind Fox Solomon, New York based photographer of the world, especially Peru, in square monochrome
• Eve Sonneman, artist, photographer, working in colour and black and white
• Melissa Springer, photojournalist
• Susan Hacker Stang, alternative cameras, also academic
• Sally Stapleton, executive photo editor at Associated Press until 2003
• Nina Howell Starr, photographer of American roadside attractions and folk art culture, and art historian.
• Maggie Steber, documentary photographer for National Geographic
• Gitel Steed, anthropologist, ethnological photographer
• Amy Stein, staged views, frequently with animals
• Nellie Stockbridge, early Idaho mining district photographer
• Zoe Strauss, shuttered buildings, empty parking lots and vacant meeting halls in South Philadelphia
• Nancy M. Stuart, portrait photographer; photography educator and administrator
• Stephanie Pfriender Stylander, photographer
• Rachel Sussman, living organisms at least 2,000 years old

  T

• Maggie Taylor, artistic digital imaging
• Joyce Tenneson, fine art photographer, often of nude or semi-nude women, with cover images on a range of periodicals including Time, Life, and Entertainment Weekly
• Paula Gately Tillman, street photography, portraits
• Beatrice Tonnesen, early views of live models for advertising
• Barbara Traub, street photography, landscapes, portraits
• Mellon Tytell, award-winning fashion and editorial photographer, did documentary series on Haiti and portraits of figures from the Beat Generation

  U

• Doris Ulmann, known for her portraits of craftsmen and musicians from Appalachia
• Penelope Umbrico, known for her abstract photographs of commonplace objects

  V

• Raissa Venables, surreal interiors
• Ami Vitale, photojournalist and documentary work, National Geographic photographer
• Bernis von zur Muehlen, fine arts photographer, notably of the male nude

  W

• Elizabeth Flint Wade, pictorial work exhibited jointly with Rose Clark
• Eva Watson-Schütze, pictorial-style portraits, founding member of Photo-Secession
• Rebecca Norris Webb
• Carrie Mae Weems, concerned with the problems of African Americans, often staging sets for her images
• Alisa Wells, experimental photography
• Annie Wells, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist
• Eudora Welty, documentary work on the rural poor in Mississippi from the early 1930s and the effects of the Great Depression
• Myra Albert Wiggins, pictorial work, member of the Photo-Secession movement
• Hannah Wilke, performance artist and photographer
• Laura Wilson, photographic essayist
• Deborah Willis , curator and exhibition organizer
• Dawn Wirth, photographer
• Sharon Wohlmuth, photojournalist and best-seller author
• Marion Post Wolcott, worked for Farm Security Administration documenting poverty during the Great Depression
• Linda Wolf, One of the first women in rock and roll photography; early work in France covers village life, later bus benches in the United States and multicultural portraits for Los Angeles billboards
• Penny Wolin, portraiture, visual anthropology, concerned with documenting American Jewish culture
• Francesca Woodman, black-and-white photographs of herself and nude female models

  Y

• Yelena Yemchuk, fashion, advertising and album photography, also videos