7 Inspirational Female Photographers You May Not Know

If you ever find yourself writing a novel about women photographers, six of whom are inspired by the lives and/or work of known women photographers, people will invariably (as it turns out), begin to recite a kind of cultural litany that goes something like this: Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, and Margaret Bourke-White.

But when I say, no, those are very fine photographers and clearly well-known, I am then asked who I have in mind. The mention of their names is sometimes met with uncertainty, even though their photographs are not. I realized that many people know the pictures, but not the names, or, in some case, the reverse.

In that spirit, here are some photographers (not necessarily in my novel) that you may already know without realizing that you know them, along with some that you may not know yet.

Whitney Otto is the author of Eight Girls Taking Pictures [Scribner, $25.00].