One thing to bear in mind considering Mortensen's work was its diversity; he switched easily and often between very flattering commercial portraiture and glamour to risque nudes to landscape, historical allegory, theatrical character studies, sappy story-telling, and rather biting social commentary, (remember "Human Relations, 1932"?)
He also represented Pictorialism in a rather late stage, when the effect was more likely to be from retouching or printing through a texture screen or diffuser than from using a soft lens at the time of the original exposure or using an alternative process, which dominated Pictorialism during the earlier Linked Ring and Photo-Secession years.
It seems the most obvious separation between his approach to the medium and Adams' was Mortensen's eagerness to twist and bend and manipulate any part of the process to achieve his ends. Adams found something pure and almost sacred in the "unadulterated" print.
And Adams' style of "Straight" photography has fallen far out of fashion in the current avant-garde art-photography circles, almost as much as Mortensen did a few decades earlier.
I think I'll stick with my own style of "Straight Pictorialism".
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