List of women photographers
Women have made significant contributions to photography since its inception. Notable participants include:
, Nina Berman, Marrie Bot, KayLynn Deveney, Rena Effendi, Aya Fujioka, Cristina García Rodero, Fay Godwin, Lourdes Grobet, Mikiko Hara, Reiko Imoto, Kyōko Ioka, Olya Ivanova, Betsy Karel, Rinko Kawauchi, Vaida Keleras, Yōko Kishikawa, Fusako Kodama, Eriko Koga, Ljalja Kuznetsova, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Helen Levitt, Markéta Luskačová, Bertien van Manen, Mary Ellen Mark, Miyuki Matsuda, Susan Meiselas, Inge Morath, Yurie Nagashima, Mika Ninagawa, Kei Orihara, Chizuru Ōta, Megumi Ōtsuka, :de:Doris Quarella|Doris Quarella, Emmanuelle Riva, Inta Ruka, Toshie Saitō, Rosalind Solomon, Toyoko Tokiwa
Afghanistan
- Farzana Wahidy, documentary photographer concentrating on women's issues in Afghanistan
Algeria
- Zohra Bensemra, photojournalist working mainly on conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
- Rena Effendi, interested in the environment, post-conflict society, the effects of oil industry on people and social disparity
Belarus
- Ottilia Reizman, documentary film and news photographer
Belgium
- Marleen Daniels, photojournalist turned fashion photographer
- Jennifer Des, photographer
- Martine Franck, documentary photographer and portrait photographer
- Cindy Frey, musical bands photographer
- Nathalie Gassel, writer, photographer
- Aglaia Konrad, photographer, educator
- Diana Lui, Malaysian-Belgian artist, photographer
- Germaine Van Parys, pioneering photojournalist who joined Le Soir in 1922
- Agnès Varda, film director, photographer, educator
- Eva Vermandel, has photographed in Iceland and Ireland
- Katrien Vermeire, photographer, filmmaker
Brazil
- Ingeborg de Beausacq, see Germany
Cameroon
- Angèle Etoundi Essamba, humanist photographer of Africa
Canada
China (People's Republic)
Croatia
- Sanja Iveković, photographer, sculptor and installation artist, creating photographic works early in her career, earning her the Camera Austria Award
- Ivana Tomljenović-Meller, photographer, poster designer, and teacher who attended the Bauhaus
Cuba
- Marta María Pérez Bravo, black-and-white photography expressing mythological beliefs
- Lissette Solorzano, medical photographer, photojournalist, widely exhibited
Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic
- Bohumila Bloudilová, portrait photographer
- Irena Blühová, documentary photographer, student of the Bauhaus and Bratislava School of Fine Arts
- Veronika Bromová, specialist in new media applications
- Eva Fuka, see United States
- Libuše Jarcovjáková, diaristic photographer
- Běla Kolářová , Avant-garde photographer
- Markéta Luskačová, social photographer, often covering children, also London's markets
- Emila Medková, influenced by surrealism
- Lucia Moholy, born in Prague, produced many of the photographs associated with the Bauhaus school, later working as a stage photographer in Berlin
- Marie Šechtlová, the poetry of the everyday
Denmark
Egypt
Estonia
- Ann Tenno, landscape photographer and photo artist, noted for her photographs of Tallinn and the churches and manor houses of Estonia
Ethiopia
- Eyerusalem Jiregna, photographer and photojournalist
Finland
- Eija-Liisa Ahtila, conceptual photographer and video artist
- Caroline Becker, the first professional female photographer in Finland
- Signe Brander, cityscapes of Helsinki
- Nanna Hänninen, chaotic objects, urban landscapes, and plants with repainting
- Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, has photographed the Newcastle district of Byker and created a Coal Coast series on the beach between Seaham and Hartlepool
- Susanna Majuri, captures short narrative scenes as if film stills
France
Gambia
- Khadija Saye
Germany
Greece
- Ianna Andreadis, combines photography with her interest in archaeology, also landscapes from southern Africa
- Nelly's, noted for her Greek temples, Berlin Olympics, later advertising, photo-reportages in the United States
- Mary Paraskeva, possibly the first Greek woman to have left a large photographic legacy from the beginning of the 20th century
- Athena Tacha, conceptual photographer
Guatemala
- María Cristina Orive, photographer, reporter and photojournalist, co-founder of the La Azotea publishing the work of Latin American photographers
Hong Kong
- Wong Wo Bik, architectural photographer
Hungary
- Vivienne Balla, fashion and fine art
- Eva Besnyö, see Netherlands
- Ata Kandó, see Netherlands
- Judith Karasz, Bauhaus graduate
- Ergy Landau, Hungarian-born photographer, worked in Vienna, Berlin and latterly in Paris
- Sylvia Plachy, see United States
- Ylla , first to specialize in animal portraiture
Iceland
- Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, whose work posted to Flickr led to employment in advertising campaigns
- Hansína Regína Björnsdóttir
- Nicoline Weywadt, pioneering female photographer
India
- Pamella Bordes, worked as an international photojournalist for Gamma Press Photos, exhibitions include notable images from India and Cambodia, also self-portraits
- Indrani, full name Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, India's best known fashion photographer, based in New York, known for her celebrity portraits such as David Bowie, Iman, Beyoncé, Kate Winslet, Will Smith, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, also known as a Tribeca Film Festival Award-winning film director
- Saadiya Kochar, first worked with the human body, portraits and then documentary
- Rathika Ramasamy, India's first woman wildlife photographer, particularly of birds
- Dayanita Singh, first photojournalism, later portraits and documentary work including Goa
- Sooni Taraporevala, a screenwriter also working in photography, especially of India's Parsi Zoroastrian community
- Homai Vyarawalla, India's first woman photojournalist, covered celebrities including Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Indira Gandhi
- Richa Maheshwari, a fashion and lifestyle photographer based in New Delhi
Iran
- Parisa Damandan, has collected portrait photographs illustrating the history of Isfahan, continuing her work after the 2003 Bam earthquake
- Shadi Ghadirian, portraits of women dressed in traditional style, often juxtaposed with modern anomalies such as a mountain bike or cola can, now increasingly exhibited in the west
- Zahra Kazemi, Iranian-Canadian freeland photojournalist who died following arrest in Iran after covering poverty, destitutions and oppression in the Middle East
- Sanaz Mazinani, Iranian-Canadian photographer and curator, installation based photography
- Shirin Neshat, photos of women confronted by Islamic fundamentalism, later working with multimedia and film
- Ashraf os-Saltaneh, first woman photographer of Iran
- Shirana Shahbazi, conceptual photography, installations
- Newsha Tavakolian, Iranian documentary photographer
- Maryam Zandi, founding board member of Iran's National Society of Photographers, has published many calendars of Iranian portraits
Iraq
- Halla Ayla, photographer, painter
Ireland
- Jane Shackleton, pioneering Irish photographer
- Helen Sloan, still and film photographer, known for photographing the TV series Game of Thrones
Israel
- Elinor Carucci, see United States
- Liselotte Grschebina, German-born, emigrated to Palestine, roots in New Vision
- Sagit Zluf Namir
- Tal Shochat, fine arts photographer
Italy
- Letizia Battaglia, photojournalist in Sicily, specializing in coverage of the Mafia for the newspaper L'Ora
- Vanessa Beecroft, photographer and performance artist, now in Los Angeles
- Monica Bonvicini, sculptor, photographer, video artist, educator
- Ghitta Carell, Hungarian-born, naturalized Italian photographer fluent from 1930-1950
- Marina Cicogna, film producer and photographer
- Yvonne De Rosa, art photography
- Domiziana Giordano, painter, actress, photographer and video artist
- Luisa Lambri, working mainly on architecture and abstraction
- Otonella Mocellin, photographer and video artist
- Tina Modotti, born in Italy, worked as a fine art photographer and documentarian, with Edward Weston, ran a studio in Mexico City
- Dianora Niccolini, pioneer of male nude photography
- Virginia Oldoini, early proponent, estheticially interested in images of herself, large collection in Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Floria Sigismondi, fashion, installations, video
- Grazia Toderi, video artist and photographer
Jamaica
- Esther Anderson, portraits and documentary work
- Renée Cox, see United States
Japan
Kuwait
- Maha Al-Asaker
Latvia
- Inta Ruka, specializing in portraits of people in the areas where they live
Lithuania
- Esther Shalev-Gerz, installation artist who also exhibits her photography
- Audronė Vaupšienė, fashion photographer and collaborator in artworks
Luxembourg
- Marianne Majerus, specializes in garden photography contributing widely to magazines and newspapers
Malta
- Adelaide Conroy, early photographer in Valetta
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Pakistan
- Farrukh Saleem, Karachi based Female photographer known for her portraits and wedding photography
Palestine
- Karimeh Abbud, professional photographer in Nazareth in the 1930s, also producing postcards
- Sama Raena Alshaibi, Iraq-born Palestinian–US conceptual artist, using photography, also an academic
- Rula Halawani, photographer, photojournalist, educator
- Emily Jacir, artist in photography and other media, also an academic
- Ahlam Shibli, photographer of Bedouins of Palestinian descent
Peru
- Andrea Hamilton, fine art photographer
Poland
- Leopoldyna Janusz
- Lotte Beese
- Ania Bien, see United States
- Margaret Michaelis-Sachs, Austrian-Australian photographer of Polish-Jewish origin, portraits, architecture of Barcelona, Jewish quarter in Cracow
- Nata Piaskowski, Polish-born American photographer, portraits and landscapes, based in San Francisco
- Zofia Rydet, documented postwar Poland
- Faye Schulman, took photos during World War II
Portugal
- Helena Almeida, conceptual painter and photographer
- Ana Dias, photographer of erotic femininity
Romania
- Alexandra Croitoru, seeks to challenge accepted ideas of power sharing and gender in Romania
Russia
- Evgenia Arbugaeva, photographer of the Russian Arctic
- Anastasia Chernyavsky
- Lena Herzog, see United States
- Ida Kar, known for her portraits of artists and writers
- Anastasia Khoroshivlova, artist and photographer
- Nina Leen, see United States
- Diana Markosian, documentary photographer who has photographed the north Caucasus and central Asia
- Elena Mrozovskaya, early Russian professional photographer
Singapore
- Marjorie Doggett, animal rights advocate, architectural photographer, and heritage conservationist
- Sim Chi Yin, photojournalist
- Zhang Jingna, see China
South Africa
- Jodi Bieber, known for taking the photograph of Bibi Aisha, the Afghanistan woman whose nose and ears were mutilated by her husband and brother-in-law
- Vera Elkan, remembered for her images of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War
- Constance Stuart Larrabee, South African's first female World War II correspondent, also known for images of South Africa
- Zanele Muholi, has used photography in support of LGBTI issues, several solo and group exhibitions since 2004
- Neo Ntsoma, known for being the first woman recipient of the Mohamed Amin Award, the CNN African Journalist of the Year Prize Photography
- Jo Ractliffe, photographer and teacher
- Colla Swart, photographs of people, landscapes and flowers in Namaqualand
- Nontsikelelo Veleko, depicts black identity
- Gisèle Wulfsohn, covered the struggle against apartheid and HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives
South Korea
- Nikki S. Lee, self-portraits posing in various ethnic and social groups such as punks, hip-hop musicians, male partners
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
- Hélène Binet, first photographed in the Grand Théâtre de Genève before turning to architectural photography, now based in London
- Lucienne Bloch, see United States
- Henriette Grindat, artistic photographer in the post-war period inspired by the surrealistic trends of the times
- Ella Maillart, travel photography
- Franziska Möllinger, Switzerland's first female photographer
- Annemarie Schwarzenbach, prolific writer and photographer, leaving some 50 photo reports documenting the rise of the Nazis in Germany and her travels to the Middle East and the United States
Turkey
- :tr:Semiha Es|Semiha Es, Turkey's first female photojournalist, worked between 1950 and 1970s as a war photographer
- Maryam Şahinyan, Turkey's first female photographer, managing a studio from 1937, archive of some 200,000 images
- Naciye Suman, Turkey's first Muslim female photographer, owning a studio from 1919 to 1930
Ukraine
- Elena Filatova, photographs of the Chernobyl area
United Kingdom
United States
Uzbekistan
- Umida Akhmedova, photojournalist working in Central Asia, arrested in 2010 for her images of the Uzbek people
Gallery