As a dedicated master of pictorialism, Mortensen’s ideas threatened purist photographers who believed that photos should faithfully and accurately represent the real world. “Pictorialism was a movement that began in the very late 19th century and extended into the 20th century with photographers who tried to make photographs either look like art – in other words they altered things to look more painterly – or tried to explore ideas like emotional qualities,” said Lytle. “They were hated by the purist photographers, like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who wanted photography to tell the truth and not look like anything other than a photograph.”