One hundred and four years ago, a University of Washington undergrad purchased a 4 x 5-inch camera and developed photographs in the family’s woodshed, which her father had converted into a makeshift darkroom.
This young woman, Imogen Cunningham, went on to become one of the first female professional photographers and a contributor to the development of photography as an art form on the West Coast.
At the time, there was no photography instruction at the UW (or at many universities), so Cunningham majored in chemistry then traveled to Dresden, Germany, to study photography.
Returning to Seattle, she worked at the studio of Edward Curtis — a famed photographer of the American West — before opening her own successful portrait studio.
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