I have a short list of photographers who’s life and work have inspired me.  Annie Leibovitz, Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon to name a few.   What draws me to a particular photographer, is a combination of the images they captured, the time in which they lived and obstacles they had to overcome in order to capture those images.   Nothing could be more inspiring to me than the women, who in the turn of the century did not even have the right to vote and yet set out on incredible adventures across the globe to share their view of life.   The woman who was truly THE pioneer of her time was Isabella Bird.

   Isabella was born in 1832 in England.  The daughter of a prominent Church Official, she was frail and sickly as a child.  After the death of her parents she began to travel the world, visiting Australia, Hawaii (then known as the Sandwich Islands), America (where she explored the Rocky Mountains on horseback in 1878).   After the death of her husband, Isabella made several trips to Central Asia, the Middle East, India, Tibet, Turkey and Kurdistan.  She was a prolific author, was called by the London Times “The boldest of Travelers” and was the first woman named as a member of the Royal Geographic Society.

 Today, we pull out our paper thin iPhones and with the push of a button on a screen we can capture anything we want.  I am overwhelmed, not only by the courage it took for Isabella to travel to such remote and wild locations, but by the daunting logistics involved in capturing each one of her stunning images.  The cameras of that day were huge, heavy and required an even heavier wooden tripod, and yet, she was able to expertly expose her images and engender such trust in her subjects.  Even with a staff of guides and Sherpa’s, for a woman in that time to orchestrate and document years of travel was a monumental feat.

Here’s the pioneers of photography; And to Isabella Bird.