ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out the scope and aims of the book and explains the methodological approach adopted, relating this to the larger feminist project to recover details of women’s artistic and professional achievements. It provides a brief historical outline of the problems that women photographers faced when they attempted to enter the profession, and how their situation changed as the nineteenth century unfolded and as photography became a more permanent feature of people’s lives. The chapter also refers to the restrictions placed on women’s subject matter in the nineteenth century, and how this affected their opportunities to experiment. Reference is made to the photographing of Indigenous subjects and how this was influenced by public attitudes and beliefs but also by commercial factors. Also mentioned are the very different working conditions of the first women photographers in the different Pacific states, but also in comparison to those who lived and worked in Europe and the eastern parts of the USA. A distinction is drawn between the largely commercial focus of nineteenth century women photographers and the increasingly artistic photography of the twentieth century with its mounting focus on camera clubs and the international style of Pictorialism.
