Sarah Hall Ladd was an early 20th century American pictorial and landscape photographer.

Ladd was born Sarah L. Hall in Somerville

Somerville, Massachusetts

Somerville is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, located just north of Boston. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 75,754 and was the most densely populated municipality in New England. It is also the 17th most densely populated incorporated place in...

, Massachusetts, the daughter of John Gill Hall and Sarah Cushing. Little is known about her childhood.

On 7 September 1881 she married Charles E. Ladd, a West Coast businessman and son of early Portland

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 (Oregon) mayor William S. Ladd

William S. Ladd

William Sargent Ladd was an American politician and businessman in Oregon. He twice served as Portland, Oregon’s mayor in the 1850s. A native of Vermont, he was a prominent figure in the early development of Portland, and co-founded the first bank in the state in 1859...

. She then moved to Portland with her new husband, and they soon settled into a very comfortable life with an elegant home overlooking the Willamette River

Willamette River

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...

.

It is not known how Ladd became interested in photography or if she received any formal training. She joined the Oregon Camera Club in September 1899, and by early 1901 a number of her works were exhibited in San Francisco.

In 1902, leading New York photographer Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...

 formed the Photo-Secession

Photo-Secession

The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular. A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F...

, a group of American photographers who worked to promote photographic pictorialism

Pictorialism

‎Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...

, and he listed Ladd as an Associate Member. It is not known how he became aware of her photography or if he had even seen her photographs, since most of those she was then taking did not accord with the pictorial tradition.

In 1903, Ladd began taking extended trips on the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

 on her friend and fellow photographer Lilly White’s custom-built houseboat, the Raysark, which contained a darkroom. Some of her most famous photographs of the river were included in an exhibition in 2008 at the Portland Art Museum

Portland Art Museum

The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it the oldest art museum on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the United States. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum became one of the twenty-five largest art museums in...

, "Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957".

Ladd had become a successful and highly regarded photographer by the early twentieth century, and many of her photographs were published in Pacific Monthly

Pacific Monthly

Pacific Monthly was a magazine of politics, culture, literature, and opinion, published in Portland, Oregon, United States from 1898 to 1911, when it was purchased by Southern Pacific Railroad and merged with its magazine, Sunset...

magazine (founded by her husband). After about 1904, Ladd’s other responsibilities took time away from her photography. She assisted her husband when he became involved in the preparations for Portland’s 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition

Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition

The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commonly also known as the Lewis and Clark Exposition, and officially known as the Lewis and Clark Centennial American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, was a worldwide exposition held in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1905 to celebrate the...

. In 1910, the Ladds moved to Carlton

Carlton, Oregon

Carlton is a city in Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. According to the 2000 United States Census, the municipality population was 1,514. The 2007 estimate is 1,755 residents.-History:...

, Oregon, after Charles became president of the Carlton Consolidated Lumber Company. In spite of these additional obligations, Ladd exhibited fourteen photographs at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

Ladd became prominent in the Christian Science

Christian Science

Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...

 movement from 1911. After her husband died in 1920, she moved to Carmel, California, in late 1924 to join her long-time friend, Lily White. Ladd died in Carmel on 30 March 1927.