Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her black-and-white photography of the street-life and architecture of New York City during the year 1930s. Not only was Abbott a photographer, but she also started the "House of Photography" in 1947 to promote and sell some of her invention. These included a distortion easel, which formed unusual effects on images developed in a darkroom, and the telescopic lighting pole, known today by many studio photographers as an "autopole," to which lights can be attached at any level. Owing to poor marketing, the House of Photography rapidly lost money, and with the deaths of two designers, the company went under.