William Mortensen was once, along with Clarence White, the dean of the American Pictorialist photography school. Following service overseas in World War I, he arrived in California in the 1920's on an Indian motorcycle in the company of an underage Fay Wray (whom he later photographed nude) and became a prominent photographer in the Hollywood studio system. He later opened a photography school in Laguna where he taught pictorialist photography techniques, including bromoil. He also authored a number of seminal photography books, the most important of which is undoubtedly "Monsters and Madonnas," which prefigured by decades the current interest in Fetish Photography. In the 1950's, Mortensen engaged in a debate, in the form of series of articles, on the value of pictorialist photography as opposed to "straight" photography. It was Adams' vindictiveness, along with that of Beaumont Newhall, which was largely responsible for the undeserved eclipse of Mortensen's reputation for a long period among photography critics and historians.

Like Mortensen, Clarence White is known as much for his teaching as his photography. Originally an accountant from Ohio, White never lost sight of his Middle American roots. There is a wholesome "family friendly" quality to many of his early photos that's reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's paintings. Along with Stieglitz, White was a co-founder of the Photo Secession and one of its most prominent members. Unlike Stieglitz, however, White stayed loyal to Pictorialism long after "straight" photography became the dominant form of the medium. As a teacher at Columbia University and the founder of the Clarence White School of Modern Photography, White influenced many photographers, such as Karl Struss and Paul Outerbridge, who would become great artists in their own right.

Karl Struss differs from Mortensen and White in that he is today remembered principally as a cinematographer rather than as a still photographer. (He even has a celebrity profile on Rotten Tomatoes.) Nevertheless, that Struss' first allegiance was to photography is clear from a 1934 quote: "Cinematography in present-day dramatic films is not an end, but a means to an end, whereas the still picture is often, if not always, both the means and the end itself." Struss maintained a successful studio in New York City where he produced pictorialist work for Vogue and Vanity Fair. He also exhibited at Stieglitz' exclusive "291" Gallery. Struss later relocated to Hollywood where he began his cinematography career while continuing to produce great pictorialist still photos.