The Command to Look A Master Photographer's Method for Controlling the Human Gaze

William Mortensen began his photographic career taking portraits of Hollywood actors and film stills. He preferred the pictorialism style of manipulating photographs to produce romanticist painting-like effects. The style brought him criticism from straight photographers of the modern realist movement and, in particular, he carried on a prolonged written debate with Ansel Adams, who called Mortensen 'The Devil' and 'The Anti-Christ'. The Command to Look was one of William Mortensen's mostsought-after books, and has been out of print for over 50 years.