Jo Spence was a British photographer, writer and educator. Born in 1934 in London to a working class family, she started her career as a commercial photographer. In the 1970s her work became political. In 1974 she established the Photography Workshop Ltd, an organization where people could learn how to use the camera as a means of emancipation. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, she refused mastectomy and conventional treatment preferring alternative methods and photo-therapy that she created with Rosy Martin. She died of leukemia in 1992. The BBC Arena documentary “Putting Ourselves in the Picture” (1987), directed by Ian Potts, follows her healing process after her first cancer diagnosis.
