“It is wrong to regard photography as purely mechanical. Mechanical it is, up to a certain point, but beyond that, there is great scope for individual and artistic expression.” -Frances Benjamin Johnston
Portraits and more
From the time she opened her Washington, D.C. studio until late in life Frances B. Johnston had made photographs of celebrities, architectural treasures from the South, presidents and students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She made self-portraits that challenged society’s norms about women — in one, she wears masculine attire complete with a pencil-thin mustache and pushs a high-wheel bicycle. In the other, she lifts the hem of her dress to show off her petticoats while holding a cigarette in her left hand and a beer stein in her right (opening photo, top row, third and fourth images).
She photographed Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States with his family on the White House lawn, humorist Mark Twain (opening photo, top row, first and second images), photographer Eadweard Muybridge, agricultural scientist George Washington Carver and women’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony (opening photo, bottom row, first, third and fourth images).
Her reputation soared. The Washington Time called Frances B. Johnston “the only lady in the business of photography in the city.” She is considered to be one of the first female photographers in the U.S.
Family friend
Frances Johnston graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute for Youn Ladies. She went to Paris and attended the Académie Julien to study drawing and painting. She moved back to Washington, D.C. and continued her education at the Art Students League with the goal of becoming a magazine illustrator.
Photography took over her life when she received a gift from a family friend.
One of Frances Johnston’s family friends was George Eastman, inventor of roll film and founder of the Eastman Kodak Company. In 1888, Eastman gave her a Kodak camera. Thomas Smillie, director of photography of the museum now known as the Smithsonian taught her photography including how to use the darkroom.
She began photographing friends and family before becoming a freelance photographer. She traveled throughout Europe during the 1890s meeting with prominent photographers there thanks to introductions from Smillie. She also procured items for his museum’s collection.
Kodak
Frances returned from Europe and went to work for Kodak in Washington, D.C. to advance film development and help customers when their cameras needed service. By 1894 she opened her studio in Washington D.C.
What a woman can do…
By 1897, she had written “What a Woman Can Do with a Camera” that was published in the Ladies Home Journal. The article holds up today. It is practical advice for anyone who wants to start a photo business. I highly suggest every aspiring pro photographer read it.
Surveying the South
The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote about Frances B. Johnston’s inspiration for chronicling the failing buildings in the South. Johnston said, “…I noticed the fine old houses which figured so importantly in colonial history and which are falling to wrack and ruin unhonored and unsung.”
In 1927-1929, she began photographing early American architecture. Funded privately, she documented the Chatham estate and aged buildings in Fredricksburg and Old Falmouth, VA. The photographs were well received. She dedicated herself to a project to preserve the buildings and get people interested in the architectural history of the American South. By 1947 her project was well established and funded by a series of grants from the Carnige Foundation.
The Times Picayune in a 1947 article revealed that the the details that Johnston’s large format photos meant to restoration craftsmen. “I consider my greatest compliment the fact that bricklayers and contractors can tell at a glance what kind of work our early artisans did on the houses in my pictures,” she said. “Ironworkers and architects tell me my photos are invaluable guides in reproducing Colonial structures, stairways and doors.”
“I will do anything to get a picture.” she said, “I have lain flat on the floor — yes, at 83 years! — to get an exact head-on view of a handsomely detailed ceiling.”
Technique
Her methods were established during her early work in Fredricksburg and Old Falmouth, VA. She researched and received suggestions for sites for her to photograph. She became skilled with light and shadow and most importantly of all patience.
“I won’t make a picture unless the moon is right, to say nothing of the sunlight and shadow! Most of the time I have to be excruciatingly patient waiting for the light to get precisely right.
“I have shot pictures from on top of boxcars and loaded trucks. If I’m in a city street, I often call the police to hold up or detour traffic while I photograph a place.”
She traveled over 150,000 miles to photograph the landmark buildings in the southern United States.
Legacy
“Good work should command good prices, and the wise woman will place a paying value upon her best efforts,” she advised in 1897. “I leave the trick angles to Margaret Bourke-White and the surrealism to Salvador Dalí.”
She died at “Arkady,” her home in New Orleans, on May 16, 1952. She was 88. She left 20,000 photographs and 3,700 glass plates and negatives tht now are kept in the Library of Congress.
Sadly, there has never been a thorough retrospective of her work at a museum.
Sources: Clio, Wikipedia, Library of Congress Surveying the South, The New York Times.
Read more stories of inspirational photographer in On Photography.
thanks for letting us know more about the history of photography