I was poor. When you're poor you work, and when you're rich you expect somebody to hand it to you. So I think being reasonably poor is very good for people.

In the 1940s Cunningham turned to documentary street photography which Imogen Cunningham executed as a side project while supporting herself with her commercial and studio photography. In Dresden Imogen Cunningham concentrated on her studies and didn’t take many photographs. On her way back to Seattle Imogen Cunningham met Alvin Langdon Coburn in London and Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Käsebier in New York.