Cleveland, 1910: For a poor girl whose father has abandoned her, the prospect of becoming an artist is almost non-existent. But Bernice Abbott is resourceful and will happily challenge convention in order to succeed.

Setting out to fulfill her dream, she embarks on a journey that will take her from bohemian Greenwich Village to the giddy cafés of 1920s Paris to a New York rising from the ashes of the Great Depression. On the way, illness and a tragic romance test her mettle, but a lucky coincidence leads her to the emerging art form of photography.

Transforming herself from 'dull' Bernice to cosmopolitan Berenice, she sets the tone for life as a portrait photographer in the Paris of Hemingway and Picasso, and prepares to take on the men who are threatened by her vision and strength.