Of all women creators, women photographers are the most forgotten. The later consideration of photography as an art form, and the female gender of the authors has contributed to this.

At a time of revision of the History of Art to include the female contribution, research starts with the lives and achievements of a group of women, at least twenty-two, in our community, who worked in photography, either as creators of images or as disseminators of them, publishers of postcards. Collaborators of their photographer husbands, hidden behind their commercial brand, heirs of the studio as widows when he dies, continuers of the paternal studio or co-owners of a fraternal one. Even originating a saga of photographers that starts from themselves and continues for generations until today.

It is not easy to trace women photographers: they are hidden behind the names of their husbands when they are widows, or they are included in a "Brothers..." that hides a sister. Or calling themselves "Daughters of..." when their father was a well-known photographer, to benefit from his prestige.

It is necessary to go to the municipal registers and wait for quotation marks to appear under the profession of photographer of the husband or father, or brother, which indicate that they also worked in the studio, performing the tasks of the same: photographing, retouching....

Or go to the registers of industrial activities where they are registered with "photography" as an activity. And to the archives, whose notarial documentation contains loans or donations that they made to their sons or husbands so that they could open a photographic studio, or maintain it, if the circumstances required it (embargoes, bad times...).

And it is important to know that sometimes they acted as transmitters of the family occupation of the deceased husband to the still youngest son. To this end, they took care of his training as a future photographer, sometimes doing it themselves. Due to the mentality of the time, when the son reached the age of majority, they withdrew to the background, but without ceasing to collaborate in the photographic studio.

We know several "widows of...", "daughters of...", but until now we did not know their names, nor their achievements.

The work made by those who signed this partnership and graduate "Artificers of light: Women and photography in Navarra in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.", presented at the V conference on research in Photography. Zaragoza, October 25-27, 2023, has managed to bring their names and trajectories to light.

The first name that we must rescue from oblivion is that of María Eliceche, (Masparraute, France, ca. 1779 - Pamplona, 1862), mother of Domingo Dublán, who in 1861 asked for a loan so that her son could establish, together with Leandro Desages, the first stable studio in Pamplona. We know that Urbana de Errazti (Lazcano, 1827-Ororbia, 1904) second wife of Domingo Dublán, financed with her dowry the re-foundation of the same studio in 1864, as well as saved it from attempts of seizure due to debts.

Carolina Soler (Madrid, 1857-Pamplona, 1918), wife of Emilio Pliego, in 1878 made a will prior to the birth of her first daughter, Esmeralda, in which, in case she died, she left him all her savings as a military orphan. When she did not die, she probably gave them to her husband, who in 1879 opened his first independent studio, separating from his partner Ducloux, in C/ San Nicolás nº 2.

Both Urbana and Carolina appear in the registers as collaborators of their husbands: Urbana in 1875-80 and Carolina in 1890. The same is true of Juana Juaristi, (St. Jean de Luz, France, 1840, ¿?), wife of Valentín Marín (Marín y Coyne), active in 1874; with Julia Zalba, (Pamplona, 1861-1948), married to José Roldán Bidaburu, active in 1880, or with Emilia Velasco Gorriz (Pamplona, 1859-1890), married to Fermín Segura and mother of Eugenio Segura, active in 1890.

From the early twentieth century to the thirties and forties, there is a group of widowed women postcard publishers who took up the business run by their husbands, spreading the photographic image of the monuments, streets and views of Navarre. We find them in Pamplona: Rubio's widow: Justa Arozarena (Arizcun, 1874-Pamplona 1943). Activity: 1912-1924, and Roldán's widow: Avelina Lasheras (Pamplona, 1857-1951). Activity: 1927-1936; in Burguete: Viuda de Errazu. Pascuala Echeverría (Burguete, 1850 - Burguete, 1933); Tafalla: Widow of Juan Abaurrea. Ulpiana Laborda (Valtierra, 1859-1947, Tafalla) Activity between 1904 and 1925; Tudela: Widow of Araiz: Ceferina Espoz. Activity: 1940-1947 (postcards and photography) and Elizondo: Mena's widow: Graciana Yrigoyen (Errazu, 1909 - Elizondo, 1973). Activity as owner: 1941- 1955 (postcards and photography).

His postcards were the sample of the trip made by those who acquired them and a call to travel for those who received them. An incitement to the primitive tourism and a recognition of the beauties of the localities reflected. Some photographs were taken by the publishers themselves, such as those of Elizondo, by Graciana Yrigoyen, widow of Victorio Mena, but others were commissioned to local photographers and they, the publishers, established a agreement with the printing press, carrying out an economically profitable commercial activity, not a creative one.

Some of them inherited the photographic studio, which they had to pass on to their children. At the beginning of the 20th century, Serapia Olaverri (Pamplona, 1860, Pamplona, 1935), widow of Ezequiel Endériz, shares ownership with her son Víctor in Tudela.

But the great photographic studio of Pamplona, in terms of quality and continuity with the master photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is that of Hijas de Pliego, with the singularity of being entirely female, run by three sisters. Its years of work coincide with the happy twenties and early thirties. And its journalistic side, apart from the studio portraitist, as will happen years later with the Broquier de Tudela and others at a later date, gives us an image of modernity in their work. The Pliego sisters: Esmeralda Pliego Soler (Pamplona, 1878-Lodosa, 1952), Blanca Pliego Soler (Pamplona, 1879-Lodosa, 1936) and Isolina Pliego Soler (Pamplona, 1892-Lodosa 1969) were active between 1924 and 1934. They had collaborated with their father, Emilio Pliego, probably since 1914, after the death of Emilio, the son. Probably, due to the father's illness, from 1920 onwards they took the photographic work , under his tutelage, not appearing with their own name until the father's death at the beginning of 1924. It is very possible that the 1920 photographs signed by a certain Víctor Pliego and sent to ABC, are the work of Esmeralda Pliego, camouflaged under a male pseudonym.

They maintained during their ten years of ownership the highest category among local photographers, being the only female studio. Their activity, in addition to portraiture, included images for the local and national press (ABC, Estampa, Ahora...). The demolition of the building that contained their studio in 1934 forced them to close, retiring to the town of Lodosa, where Isolina worked as a teacher.

The Civil War is related to the activity of other female photographers: the Carlist amateur Dolores Baletzena (Ascárate, 1895-Pamplona, 1989), starting from Pamplona, travels the fronts with her camera and leaves us images of soldiers, hospitals and devastated regions. Her work has a testimonial and political character and highlights the feminine role in the war: hospitals, hospitals and...

At the same time, in Alsasua, a young woman is repressed for being the girlfriend of a socialist. She loses her work as a telephone operator and travels with her father to Pamplona to train as a photographer with Benito Rupérez. She was Julia Zornoza (Etxalar, 1911-Pamplona, 2007), who had a "photographer's" license since 1942, and worked as such in Alsasua for 37 years. And, being the exception with respect to the others: wives, widows or daughters of photographers, she is the one who creates a saga, forming her brother, Isidro Zornoza (IZOR), and her husband, Manuel Montesinos. Like other photographers of the time, she stays at home making studio portraits and retouching, while the men, husband and brother, practice the ambulance. Her trademark "Foto Julita" appeared in the Diario de Navarra in the sixties.

The arrival in Tudela of Elena Broquier (Amorebieta, 1906 - Barcelona, 1986) also coincides with the end of the war period. From 1940 to 1945 she worked alone as a photographer and from then to 1956, assisted by her sister Inés Broquier (Irún, 1918 - Paris, 2003). The studio was called Foto Ebro and was located at Soldevilla, 11-13. Her family's relationship with photography dated back to the previous century, they had had programs of study and photographic industries in Bilbao, Amorebieta, Irún, Madrid Arnedo and Tarazona, run by her parents, herself and siblings.

In 1941, in Elizondo, Graciana Yrigoyen (Errazu, 1909 - Elizondo, 1973), widow of Victorio Mena, member of a saga of photographers established in Pamplona and Elizondo, became position of the studio until 1955, training her son Felix, with whom she continued to collaborate, although she ceded ownership to him. She went to Barcelona to fill in the training, which she started with her husband. She will take photographs and publish postcards of the area.

In other towns in Navarra: Estella and Tafalla, since the fifties, there have been female programs of study s starting from a previous paternal or fraternal study and, in two cases, they share work with a male sibling.

In Estella, María Montoya (Oteiza, 1908 -Estella, d. 1974) collaborated with her brother Toribio, until he died and she took over the studio, under the name Hermanos Montoya, from 1960 to 1968.

Another studio in Estella, a continuation of that of Eladio Aguirre, was taken over by his daughter when he died in 1955. María Teresa Aguirre (Pamplona, 1938-2020) worked in it from the age of 17, although the ownership, being a minor, corresponded to her mother, Aguirre's widow. In 1967 María Teresa moved to Pamplona where she worked at programs of study Galle and Beta until the mid-seventies.

In Tafalla, in the early fifties, another photographer, Rocío Montoya (Tafalla, 1927-Zaragoza, 2016), began to collaborate with her father, Ángel Montoya, a renowned photographer, and later with her brother Carlos until 1978. She managed the studio as well as doing all the photographic work.

Returning to Pamplona, in 1951 sample was the first exhibition of a female photographer: Lydia Anoz (Pamplona, 1925-2017). She was initiated in photography by her husband Pedro María Irurzun (+1957), with whom she collaborated in the studio.

Lydia is the only avant-garde photographer of the group of women studied. She carried out formal experiments creating still lifes and portraits of art and culture personalities that relate her to European avant-garde photographers. She was co-founder of association Fotográfica y Cinematográfica Navarra in 1949. Her work has two phases: the fifties and the seventies.

A large issue of women over a century exercised in a discreet but indisputable way the photographic profession in a community, Navarre, and until now its history had not been written. This work is an approach to it and a first step for further developments.