I was brought up on art. My father thought I had a great hand at art and sent me to art school. But he did not want me to become a photographer.

In the 1940s Cunningham turned to documentary street photography which Imogen Cunningham executed as a side project while supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography. In Dresden Imogen Cunningham concentrated on her studies and didn’t take many photographs. On her way back to Seattle Imogen Cunningham met Alvin Langdon Coburn in London and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Käsebier in New York.