Jane Bown - Photographer

I was saddened to learn of Jane Bown's death yesterday. I admired her because she believed you didn't need an expensive camera to capture great images. This blip from the Web is in her memory.  Jane Hope Bown CBE (13 March 1925 – 21 December 2014) was a British photographer who was awarded a CBE in 1995 for her outstanding contribution to photography.  She worked as a Chart Corrector in the Wrens, 1944-46, and was a student photographer at Guildford School of Art, 1946-50.  She started her photographic career 56 years ago when her portrait of Bertrand Russell appeared in The Observer.  She was admired for her straightforward, naturally posed, black and white portraits, usually taken with available light. Her published books include The Gentle Eye (1980) which was accompanied by a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, 1980-81, Women of Consequence (1986), Men of Consequence(1987) and Faces (2000). In 2006 she photographed Queen Elizabeth on her 80th birthday – it was also Jane’s 80th year!