While visiting Holland for an exhibition of Dennis Hopper’s work in 2001, Mortensen photographed Hopper photographing a wall while being observed by a friend in the foreground.
“We were just watching [Dennis],” he told CBS News’ Tracy Smith. “And he was going on and on just looking at this wall, which to me was like, ‘What’s there? There’s nothing there.’ But he saw something there, something that he would later paint or use for an abstract photograph.
“I just like that composition … the way he was so single-mindedly focused on that, and she was so single-mindedly watching him. And you can see by the change of his posture and the change of her hand that she’s having an emotional reaction to what he’s doing. And I was having an emotional reaction to what both of ‘em are doing!”