Doris Ulmann

Doris Ulmann was born in New York, New York. Ulmann studied at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Columbia University, hoping to become a teacher of psychology. Photography was at first a hobby and only became her chosen profession in 1918. When speaking of her preference for portrait subjects she said, “A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitutes for me an interesting face. For this reason the face of an older person, perhaps not beautiful in the strictest sense, is usually more appealing than the face of a younger person who has scarcely been touched by life.” She is most well known for her photographs of craftsmen and musicians in Appalachia. She liked to work with a 6.5 X8.5 inch tripod mounted view camera. She produced soft focus platinum prints because the muted warm tonality added to her normally respectful and sympathetic portrayals of her subjects.

(Source: under review)