Buddy Rogers, photographed by Preston Duncan.

Motion picture still photography grew rapidly from the early teens through the mid-1920s, becoming the main publicity staple of Hollywood film studios. Begun merely as a record for film scenes, shot by camera operators and cinematographers, stills also quickly expanded into the artistic realm.

At the turn of the 20th century, stage and vaudeville performers personally hired New York studio photographers to shoot images they could employ to promote themselves in newspapers and magazines. David Shields, in his book, “Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography,” notes that many studios at this time began experimenting with visual language to create what we now know as glamour.

Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland: Tales Lost and Found” is available for the Kindle.

Jeanette MacDonald, photographed by Preston Duncan.

The process quickly immigrated to the West Coast, where regular portrait studios like the Albert Witzel Studio and Fred Hartsook Studio shot many sessions with stage stars passing through town. Dramatic images captured the romantic imaginations of viewers and spectators, enticing individuals to attend performances, or even emulate the dress and actions of the performers.

These actors passed on the names of talented photographers to their friends performing for moving pictures in Los Angeles, who began commissioning alluring images of themselves. Film studios hired these photographers for special shoots promoting tent pole and high-class product. Junius Estep was one of the first to receive credit by a film company, for his portraits of Selig Co. stars in 1912.

On the other hand, many photographers working in the art world migrated to the film community to expand their shooting skill. Frank Hoover of Hollywood employed Rembrandt lighting to shoot beautiful still lifes and portraits to sell to local residents and tourists, before taking portraits for the film crowd. Karl Struss, a top practitioner of Pictorialist photography, moved into motion pictures as both cameraman and stillsman for people such as Cecil B. DeMille.

By 1920, Famous Players-Lasky Studio established the first studio still gallery to organize, regulate and produce photographs for publicity purposes. As “Masters of Starlight” points out, virtually every studio by the end of the decade formed galleries to shoot and manufacture portraits, wardrobe reference, location reference, scene and off-camera stills for wide dissemination to newspapers, artistic and fan magazines, defining and regulating the studio style.

Several early stillsmen stood out for their stunning and evocative visual representations of film stars. Photographers such as Clarence Sinclair Bull, Ruth Harriet Louise, George Hurrell, James Abbe, Bert Longworth, Max Munn Autrey and Eugene Robert Richee created sensual and iconic images that crafted a star’s brand and which attracted legions of fans.

A dragonfly photographed by Preston Duncan, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Photographer Preston Duncan was one of these early stillsmen, shooting striking portraits in the late 1920s and early 1930s, while also concentrating on crafting artistic images for gallery shows. Born in Bath, Sagadehoc, Maine, on June 16, 1899, Duncan moved with his family to Seattle about 1910. He was drafted in the summer of 1918 during World War I, but never made it overseas. After discharge, he served as a timeskeeper.

In the early to mid-1920s, Duncan moved to Hollywood to focus on photography, and by 1927, his movie star portraits appear in the Los Angeles Times. He worked for Warner Bros. and also operated a gallery out of his 2623 Canyon Drive home, known as “Lindoldun.” He quickly hit it off with a few stars, becoming friends and hosting and attending parties for the likes of Monte Blue, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, John Bowers and Marguerite de la Motte.

While he gained fame and a nice salary acting as stillsman, Duncan dreamed of critical recognition and acceptance in the art world. He experimented with visuals and creating movement in portraiture. The May 28, 1928, Los Angeles Times published one of his avant-garde portraits of Myrna Loy, showing her face bisected into lines of light and shadows, a dynamic representation of Cubism.

Patricia Johnston in “Real Fantasies: Edward Steichen’s Advertising Photography,” described Preston Duncan’s work as follows: “The commercial Hollywood photographer Preston Duncan prized eccentric camera angles for their upsetting of “visual equilibrium”: “Well done, “freak” angles have great eye appeal and retention value because they first cause an impression of surprise in the observer, and then of discovery.”

The Hollywood Public Library hosted a Theatre Arts Exhibition in October 1928 in which Duncan participated, to prepare for his winter opening at Paris’ Galleries Rosen, the first time a photographer from California had been asked to exhibit. Another small part of the exhibit proposed for Paris hung at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel from Oct. 8 to 14, hosted by actresses Blanche Sweet, Patsy Ruth Miller and Mary McAllister, among others.

In January-February 1929, Duncan sponsored seven collegiate dance contests at the popular Montmartre Cafe to help gain work to allow more focus on artistic studies. Each week, a winner was named and advanced to a final contest, mentioned prominently in the weekly newspaper ads. Each week’s winner won a handpainted photograph study, while the grand prize consisted of six handpainted photographic studies.

Duncan experimented with equipment as well, looking to develop new lenses or lighting for achieving new effects and looks. In April, the Los Angeles Times presented a photograph showing a new lamp devised by Duncan, which bathed sitters in a light resembling a suntan.

That September, still lifes by Duncan were named “pictures of the year” at a Berlin photography show, and the Los Angeles Times ran one of them in its Sept. 22, 1929, edition. They depicted feeling and action, such as “Mob Spirit,” which captured the intensity of mob feeling during the French Revolution, as modeled by Fritz Feld.

The photographer took part in other arts shows in 1929, exhibiting at UCLA and other galleries as the only photographer among painters and sculptors. Duncan also shot images for the book “Angud and the Ducks,” a children’s book about nature. His portraits also appeared as a running feature in “New Movie” magazine.

Duncan married his wife, Carla, in the early 1930s, with the Hollywood Filmograph noting that her late father, Salvatore Tomaso, directed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and her sister married Ed “the Strangler” Lewis.

With his work as a portraitist and his freelance work, Duncan was forced to move from his Vine Street Studio to Sunset Boulevard in 1932. For the next couple of years, photos he took of “older” actresses in their 30s, like Betty Compson and Dorothy MacKaill, which appeared in advertisements for Lux Soap in movie magazines.

By 1933-1934, Duncan moved his focus away from films toward artistic work. He freelanced on special projects as well, including “Let’s Go Outdoors,” a children’s book about nature written by Harriet Huntington in 1939, when she couldn’t find a good book for young children about small outdoor creatures like snails, turtles, dragonflies and the like. She hired Duncan to shoot images for the book, with the Los Angeles Times describing his work as beautiful and excellent in their review.

In 1940, the family moved to Newport Beach, and later moved to Santa Barbara. He died February 2, 1958, and is buried in Santa Barbara. Duncan’s work shows great skill in suggesting movement in his still photography, as well as strong visual lines and angles. Hopefully, more information will turn up to document both his Hollywood and more avant-garde photography.