For The Woman behind the Lens, Berch has had to ferret out the nature of Johnston's relationship with Mattie Edwards Hewitt.... Interpreting their letters' sentiments, the biographer writes, 'is hardly straightforward. Some scholars advise us to understand all the romantic outpourings between nineteenth-century women as expressions of female friendship, rather than sexual passion. Others are more inclined to see such writings as a clue to a greater, if submerged, lesbian subculture.

However one judges Berch's view of the Johnston-Hewitt affair, it is clear that the new book will help brighten the overall spotlight on a photographer remarkable for what an earlier biography called 'a talent for detail.'.

- Brendan Lemon, OUT Magazine