Monsters and Madonnas

About this book

A woman's face emerges from darkness, while another photograph presents a figure so distorted that it seems to belong to a nightmare. William Mortensen could make his studio portraits unsettling with a change of light, pose or photographic treatment.

This collection displays his fascination with beauty, grotesquerie and the emotional power of a constructed image. Its photographs challenge the idea that a camera must simply report what stood before it. Mortensen's theatrical manipulation of prints gives the work an atmosphere closer to decadent illustration and horror cinema than to ordinary portrait photography.