Contains twenty gelatin silver print sepia-tone photographs by William Mortensen, each signed in pencil by the photographer in the bottom margin. 9¾x7¾" (including margins). Plus, 12 reproduced photographs clipped from various periodical sources and various sizes. Together, laid loose inside the original black cloth portfolio folder, front cover with a 3¾x2¾" gelatin silver print pictorial cover label titled Pictorial Photography by Mortensen.

Original portraits include Nicolo Paganini, The Maid of Tunis (1932), “Betty,” Galileo, “A la Gare,” The Market Girl, “Thunder” showing a mature boy looking up to the heavens, “Wong,” “Adelita,” “Wind” showing a woman disturbed by wind, “Ko-Ko,” “No No Hana,” “Give Us this Day,” “An Indian Lyric,” “Sojin,” A Tibetan Priest, “Patricia” a young girl, Cesare Borgia, A Flemish Maid, and “Johan the Mad.” Twelve are titled in pencil in the bottom margin and eight are lettered within the photograph (as issued by Mortensen). Some of the clippings from an article by Mortensen “My Favorite Picture” and include: Woman of Languedoc, Girl of Lanai, etc., a few of which are of beautiful topless women. William Mortensen (1897–1965) photographer, author, and teacher, considered the best of his generation at pictorial portraiture. "Mortensen...saw photography as...one of the arts 'a graphic art'... This is why he so often used the work of artists and photographers as examples...he conceptually approached photography like a painter...the use of technique to construct a vision, and that is what makes him modern—his manipulation of our expectation of photographic fact in order to create an internal truth and vision" - Larry Lytel.