Among those capturing the disaster on film was one of the worlds very best - Arnold Genthe - who borrowed a camera from a friend and went to work.

Many of these masterpieces are now in the permanent collection of the Palace of Legion of Honor.

The significance of the 1906 Earthquake becomes magnified by the fact that for the first time in history a major disaster occurred in a major city at a time when...

there was an abundance of cameras, film and photographers on hand to record it for future generations.