Dorothy Bohm was born 1924 in Konigsberg, East Prussia. In 1939, she escaped the threat of Nazism and left to finish schooling in England, where she graduated from Manchester College of Technology in 1942. After she graduated, she worked in a leading portrait studio in central Manchester. She traveled extensively throughout Europe, The United States and Mexico. Bohm became known for her portraiture, street photography and for her early adoption of color.