Reflecting on her life’s work, Johnston once said, “I won’t take a picture unless the moon is right, to say nothing of the sunlight and shadow! Most of the time I have to be excruciatingly patient waiting for the light to get precisely right. Sometimes I have a tree cut down, have a stump removed or a platform erected to get the proper perspective. I have shot pictures from on top of boxcars and loaded trucks.”
Capturing the past