Alice Gowland was born in Pittsburgh and moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was eight years old. In December 1941 she met Peter Gowland. It was truly love at first sight - they eloped three weeks later.

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Together they created a family and a successful photography business that spanned six decades. In 1955 they designed and built their dream home/photography studio in Rustic Canyon, near the beach in southern California.

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They traveled the world giving lectures on photography, wrote columns and books, and took thousands of photographs including over 1,000 magazine covers.

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Alice was the brains behind the business. While Peter was away at war she took it upon herself to sell his photographs as a way to produce income.  She quickly learned there was a market for the pin-up photos he was taking.  After his return, she continued to oversee the sales of their work, managed the production of Peter’s custom Gowlandflex cameras and sourced commercial jobs. 

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