Johan Friedrich Carl (Fred) Kruger was a professional photographer born on 18 April 1831 in Berlin. Kruger arrived in Australia in the early 1860s and in 1866 he opened a photographic studio at 133 Cardigan Street, Carlton, Victoria, Australia.

In 1866 Kruger took the first group photograph of the Australian Aboriginal cricket team who later played in England in 1868. Kruger was commissioned in 1877 by the Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines to produce an album of carte-de-visite portraits of the Aboriginal people at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Mission Station.

Fred Kruger died in Surrey Hills, Melbourne on 15 February 1888.