Nina Leen.

Nina Leen was born in 1909. Although she was born in Russia, she was raised in Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. She always knew that she wanted to be a photographer and was fascinated with viewing the world through a camera lens. Her first camera was a Rolliflex. She enjoyed photographing members of both the human kind and the animal kingdom, and became acclaimed in Europe as an animal photographer. She moved to the United States in 1939. She was fascinated by the culture differences and the habits and rituals of teens in her new homeland. She began to photograph American teens, and created two seires called, "A Teenager Monopolizes the Telephone" and "The American Male".

In 1945, Nina Leen joined LIFE Magazine. She was one of their first women photographers and produced over 40 covers and countless spreeads for them throughout her career. She covered a wide variety of stories throughout her life, and is best known for her continuing story of a dog named Lucky. Lucky was a dog whom Nina Leen adopted, after it had been found near dead on the highway by some LIFE staffers. She won over the hearts of America with these photos.

Nina also photographed bats. Her bat series was published in a book called "The World Of Bats", 1n 1970. She had long been fascinated by bats and called them her flying kittens. She'd spend hours walking through jungles and exploring caves, crouching for hours on end in the darkness in order to achieve photos which had never been seen before. In her career, she published 15 books in total, including Women, Heroes and a Fog, Love, and Elevated Apes. She passed away on January 5, 1995.

I really admire Nina Leen and all the work that she did. I especially love her photos of animals, and I found it really amazing when I read about what she had to entail in order to get her bat photos. It definitely takes a lot of strength and courage to venture into dangerous places like dark caves and the jungle for some photographs. I really admire her strength and the patience she has that allowed her to wait for hours at a time in order to get photos. She has definitely inspired me to be more patient while I am shooting. I also love her photos of her adopted dog Lucky, because I enjoy photographing my dog as well. I find the pictures to be very touching, and they have given me inspiration for when I am photographing my own dog.

Nina Leen would fall under the category, "Women in Photography".

Sources
http://www.gallerym.com/artist.cfm?ID=51
http://www.photocollect.com/bio.php?id=225