The black-and-white photo shows a mustachioed man, cowboy hat in lap, gazing solemnly at the camera, an iconic shot of B.C.'s first train robber.
 
American bandit Billy Miner, who robbed a Canadian Pacific Railway train near Kamloops in 1906, has gained notoriety in books and films.
 
Now, Summerland author Sherril Foster is turning the lens on the photographer, Mary Spencer.
 
Foster described Spencer, one of B.C.'s most prominent early photographers, as a trailblazer and an iron-willed woman ahead of her time.
 
"She looks meek and mild, but she must have been very assertive to have done what she did as a woman in Canada at a time when women weren't even regarded as a person until 1929," she said.
 
Foster started digging into Spencer's life in 2007 when, as curator of the Summerland Museum, she met Don Spencer, Spencer's great nephew.
 
Her book on Spencer's life, "A Steady Lens:  The True Story of Pioneer Photographer Mary Spence", was published in September.
 
Spencer, a 40-year-old teacher from Ontario, opened a photography studio in Kamloops in 1899, one of only two in B.C. owned by a woman.
 
It was an unusual profession for a woman, said Foster, but Spencer thrived and became in demand for her portraits and landscape shots.
 
As the town's only photographer, Spencer was hired by The Vancouver Daily Province in May 1906 to shoot photos of the front-page story of the day.
 
Miner and his gang had been captured after a manhunt and were being brought into town by police and a posse.
 

She also took mug shots of the trio for the provincial police.
 
An article published by a local newspaper at the time referred to her as the first woman in the British Empire to be asked to photograph criminals, said Foster.
 
"It was that mug shot that became kind of an icon for Miner," said Foster.
 
"He became a folk hero, a Robin Hood figure, even though he was just a bandit."
 
The Province did not give Spencer credit for the photos, not unusual for the time as most published photos were not credited.
 
A local newspaper even referred to her as a man, even though the prints were clearly stamped with "Miss M. Spencer, Kamloops, B.C."
 
Contrary to how she has been portrayed in popular culture, including the 1982 Genie-award-winning movie "The Grey Fox", as Miner's lover, Foster said Spencer was a devout Baptist and teetotaller who certainly would not have hooked up with a desperado.
 
Five years later, Spencer gave up photography and moved to Summerland, where she and her sister ran an orchard.
 
She died at 81, and was buried in a Summerland cemetery along with her two sisters.
 
Cheryl Chan.