Photo of the Week – February 22, 2014

American photographer Imogen Cunningham began photographing as a young woman in the early 1900s. While studying at the University of Washington in Seattle, she studied photography chemistry and photographed plants for the botany department in order to finance her education. She learned more about portrait photography working in Edward S. Curtis’ studio and later opened her own studio in Seattle, often making portraits of people in their homes or in the woods nearby her home. This photograph, entitled The Dream, was taken early on in her career, in 1910. Her work was part of a group exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles festival in France in 1973 (Trois photographes américaines, Imogen Cunningham, Linda Connor, Judy Dater).             This work (Dream, by Imogen Cunningham), identified by Wikimedia Commons, is free of known copyright restrictions.