H.G. Kaiser was born in Germany in 1864 and emigrated to Alaska around 1879. He worked as a miner and a photographer in Nome. In 1917 he was hired by the Alaska Engineering Commission. He made photographs of indigenous culture, as well as mining and reindeer farming.

Beverly Bennett Dobbs was a photographer and filmmaker in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He was born near Marshall, Missouri. He had a photography studio in Bellingham, Washington, for 12 years until 1900 when he moved to Nome, Alaska. In 1909 he established the Dobbs Alaska Moving Picture Co. and made films about the Gold Rush and Arctic travelogues. In 1909 he photographed the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in Seattle. By 1911 he had shifted his focus to filmmaking, selling off his negatives to the Lomen Brothers.