Wiiliam Mortenson


I have been reading Ansel Adam’s autobiography where he describes how the f64 club was started and how partly it was a reaction to the pictorialist group of photographers, led by William Mortenson.

 Mortenson was 5 years older than Ansel and took pictures of people dressed up as historical figures (dreadful in my opinion) nudes (better in my opinion). He ‘messed around’ with the pictures and printed them on soft parchment paper! I thought there was a similarity with this one of a tree and some snapseed photography. Ansel thought that photography should be literal, but obviously he was taking decisions like framing the shot and printing his photographs and also thought that there should be an emotional investment in the picture. He was affronted by the overt sentimentality of Mortenson’s work. These arguments still continue today!

There is more on Mortenson in an article in this online magazine  - http://www.thescreamonline.com/

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