Merlyn Severn (1897–1973) was an English photographer. She spent seven years working as a photojournalist in Africa, but is most remembered for changing the direction of dance photography from focusing on posed photographs to action shots.
She was born Dorothy Susan Harvey on 8 August 1897 in Chelsea, London, to civil servant Sir Paul Harvey and his wife Ethel, née Persse.
During World War II, she worked for the WAAF in radar, and spent a period of internment on German-occupied Guernsey.
Later in life she lived in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, before returning to live in Aller Park, Devon, and she died in Devon on 12 November 1973.[1]
A self-taught photographer, she photographed Michel Fokine’s Blum Company in their opening season in June 1936, which led to a book, Ballet in Action; a one-person show; and six photographs being accepted by the London Salon of Photography in 1937.[2] Particular in her methods, she used ultra-speed film imported from America to allow her to print exhibition-quality prints directly from negatives.[3] Her use of dance action shots was innovative,[4] [5] and she defended it in the introduction to her book.
Between 1945 and 1947, she was a full-time staff photographer for Picture Post.[6] Working freelance for the same paper, Severn spent seven years in Africa, covering stories in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi. She collaborated with Hugh Tracey on African Dances of the Witwatersrand Gold Mines,[7] and wrote an account of her travels, Congo Pilgrim.[8]
In 1956, she wrote an account of her photographic career, Double Exposure.