Ten Female Photographers You Should Know About

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Written By Caterina Maina

Since the invention of photography, it has been a male-dominated field. Between 2008 and 2020, women only made up 11 percent of acquisitions in museums and 14.9 percent of exhibitions in the U.S. One could argue that this number is because there are more male photographers however, in the past 40 years, women have been entering the art field at the same rate as men.

With March being Women's History Month, I wanted to shine a light on some women-identifying photographers! There are hundreds of thousands of female artists around the world. I only listed a mere ten here, barely scratching the surface of the amount of creativity and skill out there. Some names I already knew, and some I discovered when making this list, but overall these artists have done (or are doing) amazing things with their art.

Representation is important! So I hope you all find an artist on this list that inspires you.

10 Female Photographers You Should Check Out

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  1. Deana Lawson

    Born in 1979, Deana Lawson is an American photographer and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. In her large-format photographs, she explores intimacy, spirituality, and sexuality around the Black experience. Lawson's environmental portraits seem so intimate that you wouldn’t even know that most of these people are strangers to her and, sometimes, to each other. She works closely with her subjects to create these intimate depictions of Black bodies interacting in private and public spaces. In these photographs, there is a layer of perfection to the composition, with every detail within the image carefully constructed by Lawson. These color-saturated images are carefully considered and thought out. Her work is in many contemporary museums and is on the album cover of "Freetown Sound" a song by Blood Orange.

    View work here / Buy her book here


  2. Marta María Pérez Bravo

    Marta María Pérez Bravo is a Cuban photographer born in Havana in 1959. She is best known for her black-and-white self-portrait work, where she utilizes her own body with references to Afro-Cuban religious beliefs and female spirituality. Primarily practicing Santeria and Palo Monte, she creates dream-like images with a diffused focus that create intimate depictions of this mythology and the experience of being a woman. Rarely showing her face, her body performs for the camera, moving it in unconventional ways and using items such as oars or candles within the image. 

    View work here

  3. Felicia Abban

    Known as the first and most respected photographer in her country, Felicia Abban was a Ghanaian photographer born in 1935. Abban made a name for herself as Ghana's first recognized female photographer. She was introduced to photography by apprenticing in her father's photography studio at age 14 and eventually opening her studio in 1955. She is known for her self-portraits and photographs of then-president Kwame Nkrumah (and other presidents after). Her photographs, taken before going out or heading to political events, were a way to promote her photography studio business. Many resemble images in fashion magazines and style feeds. Her portraits were eloquent, soft, and detailed; all taken with a 4x5 large format camera. The way she photographed herself, you wouldn’t be able to tell that she was the photographer behind it. Along with her self-portraits, she documented everyday life and captured images of Ghana at its turning point.

    View work here / Buy the 58th Biennale di Venezia book featuring her work here

  4. Shadi Ghadirian

    Shadi Ghadirian is a contemporary photographer born in 1974. She draws influence from her experiences as a Muslim woman living in Iran. Her project, "Like Everyday," satirically uses household objects, adding life to these objects and making commentary on women's roles in an Islamic state. It appears like the subjects have become tasks that women have become expected to perform. Each subject's chador uses patterned fabrics to make them unique, allowing them to stand out. In her project “Qatar” she mixes vintage traditional attire with pop culture references, incorporating items such as boomboxes, a Pepsi soda can, bikes, and contemporary art, to emulate the feeling of being stuck between tradition and modernity. 

    View work here / Buy a book of work here

  5. Maria Lax

    Maria Lax, originally from Northern Finland, is a London-based artist, known for her use of vibrant colors and abstract photographs. Lax blends reality and fantasy by creating these atmospheric images that seem straight out of a movie. Originally with a background in cinematography, it is no wonder why her photographs breathe cinema. Their tones create a dystopian atmosphere and entice the viewer to investigate. The technique and design behind these photographs are astonishing. The vibrant and electric colors distort what could be a normal space into something out of this world.


    View work here

  6. Imogen Cunningham

    Born in Portland, OR, Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer who was known for her ‘independent spirit’. She became a historical figure in twentieth-century photography when she took part in the founding of the f.64 Group, a photo group devoted to sharp focus and fine details in photography. She explored photography as an art form and used the influences of pictorialism and surrealism in her work. She ventured into street photography, nude portraits, still lifes, and self-portraits. Her photographs utilize light, texture, and movement, creating images that feel light and tender. Throughout her photographic career, she continuously experimented with the art form, at one point using double exposures in her work.  


    View work here / Buy a book of her work here

  7. Lia Clay

    Lia Clay is a portrait and fashion photographer based in New York City. As a trans artist, Clay’s work in photography has been a love letter to the trans community. She uses her art to uplift and highlights their contributions to art, style, and culture. She captures the grace and vulnerability within the trans and LGBTQ community, creating spaces for the queer community to have representation. Her portraits are intimate and celebrate the beauty of all bodies. 


    View work here

  8. Kathya Landeros

    Kathya Maria Landeros is a Mexican-American photographer and educator. Her photographs are influenced by her bi-cultural upbringing, focusing on Latinx communities. She explores their history, migration, representation, and belonging. Her images beautifully depict these communities with tenderness and love. She explores the suburbs through a childhood and family lens, photographing inside their homes and when they're out playing. Her portraits evoke gentleness and pride in her subjects. In her color work, she uses a mix of flash and natural light to create saturated images that evoke the hot summer days of California. This gives vibrancy to the subjects. She was also a professor of mine at MassArt. So she holds a special place in my heart. Kathya was one of the most influential professors and mentors I have had. To this day, her words impact my art-making and portraits.


    View work here

  9. Catherine Opie

    Born in Sandusky, Ohio, in 1961, Catherine Opie is a fine art photographer fascinated by communal, sexual, and cultural identity. She balances conceptual with documentary work to examine familiar genres and individual identity. A considerable portion of her work focuses on her friends in the lesbian and gay community in Los Angeles and other areas. Her self-portraits became some of her most notable work, where she would cut into her skin. These images of Opie are profoundly personal and allow us to witness her in a physically vulnerable state. She also photographed herself breastfeeding her son. Bringing representation to the lesbian community, having never seen a masculine-presenting woman appear in this way. 


    View work here / Buy a book of her work here

  10. Gauri Gill

    Based in New Delhi, Gauri Gill was born in 1970. She examines the daily lives of India’s rural population, seeking to give a voice to the vulnerable and overlooked of modern India. She explores the uncanny and elicits a quiet essence in her photographs. Some of her subjects wear masks that look directly at you. Gill explores themes of survival, self-assertion, identity, and belonging. She also looks at conceptual issues relating to memory and authorship. Her work involves working collaboratively with her subjects and establishing close relationships and friendships within the local communities. She’s known for her project “The Americans” (taking the title from Robert Frank’s famous journey across the U.S.), where she photographed across America documenting Indian Americans in their homes.


    View work here / Buy her book here

Photography Books of Artists:

This blog is fully written and run by photographer Caterina Maina. If you like what you read, please leave a comment, like, and/or share it on your social media!

And if you have any questions, suggestions on topics, or an interesting exhibition Caterina should check out please feel free to leave them in the comments or email her at caterinamainaphotography@gmail.com!

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