THE WEEKEND COLLECTOR: Kodak Girl

This weekend's featured website is The Kodak Girl, or Kodakgirl.com. Martha Cooper, our  Kodak Girl, is an amazing photographer and expert on many things Kodak and photography. She specializes in vintage (pre-1930) images, especially advertising images of female photographers. In the early days of Kodak advertising, well before the turn of the last century, Kodak often used illustrations and photos of women behind the cameras. Not amateur or hobbyists, but women who looked competent, adventurous, professional. They might be mothers taking photos of their children, or they might be on safari. Skiing or sailing. In long skirs, or trousers. They looked at home behind the camera. Most of these images are Kodak, but not all. Martha doesn't really mind who made the cameras, she loves the images of females taking photographs. Back in the early days of these advertising images, Kodak called their female photographer "Kodak Girl". The name stuck, although images of these independent, and talented women disappeared after about 1930. After that, women were most likely seen as the subject of the photographer, not the photographer herself.

In addition to her fabulous website, you can also read an interview with Martha in the Collector's Weekly. It's really fun to read about how she got her start in photography, and collecting. She has quite a story, I hope you take the time to read it!  Martha was good enough to send me some nice high res images, and the endpapers (below) for her upcoming book, Kodak Girl. (What else would it be titled?)  I hope you enjoy visiting Martha's fabulous website!