William mortensen

“William Mortensen - The Worship of Isis, The Moon Goddess (1924)”

Something of a photo alchemist, Mortensen combined his photographs with others and retouched them using glamour shots, religious relics, mythological creatures, and scenes of the occult. Photo Fay Wray courtesy Stephen Romano Gallery

William Mortensen (1897–1965) … Wind … 1933 …

Mrs Mortensen by William Mortensen 1926 #vintage #photo

This is a guest post from Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey regarding two fascinating new books related to photographer William Mortensen. Now that smartphones have become the camera of choice, it seems strange that photographers once belonged to divergent schools that battled one another, and sometimes quite viciously at that. The style that integrated painterly techniques with film technology was called Pictorialism. The “modernists” who dismissed complex photo techniques called…

Somewhere in a dark room almost a century ago, an image emerges of a woman with her skeleton lover. Beside it, another of a gyrating goblin, a pin-up worthy witch, or some other creature from the wonderfully twisted mind of photographer William Mortensen. Today, Mortensen is praised as a pioneer of

William Mortensen (January 27, 1897 – August 12, 1965) was an American photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s–1940s in the Pictorialist style and occult-themed works that were controversial in their time. A print of this image hung in the Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey's “Black House” in San Francisco in the 1960s.

Experimental photographer William Mortensen took this photo of silent film actress Betty Compton in 1922.