Women Photographers
I've just read about six women photographers:
* Lola Alvarez Bravo
* Imogen Cunningham
* Elsa Dorfman
* Dorothea Lange
* Cindy Sherman
* Carrie Mae Weems
in the book In Real Life: Six Women Photographers by Leslie Sills, 2000.

I'm now reading Berenice Abbott: Aperture Masters of Photography, Number Nine, with an essay by Julia Van Haaften, 1988.

It means a great deal to me to read about women artists working in non-standard or traditionally female forms: the diary, the letter, the snapshot. Women often need "permission" from peers to use such forms in the arts. For example, Carrie Mae Weems made storytelling photo series with text and audiotape. One featured a woman and her young daughter around a simple kitchen table. The focus was on emotion and relationship. Also, Cindy Sherman's stills from imaginary movies left it open to the viewer to imagine what led up to the scene and what might follow.