The first master of tall-tall photography was William H. “Dad” Martin (1865-1940). At the age of 21, Martin moved to Ottawa, Kansas to learn photography from E.H. Corwin, whose studio Martin eventually purchased a mere eight years later. In 1908, he began crafting tall-tale post cards. His exaggerated images quickly became so popular that, within one a year, Martin’s company was allegedly turning out over 10,000 postcards per day. His impressive, dynamic compositions set the standard for the genre. These postcards were so popular, in fact, that evidence exists to suggest that they were often reproduced without permission by other distributors and peddled as their own. Martin’s interest in tall-tale photography seems to have been short-lived and mostly economically driven, however. In 1912, only four years after he started shooting tall-tale photos, Martin sold his post card company, having amassed a small fortune. Nevertheless, during this short stint Martin popularized a new cultural phenomenon in tall-tale post cards with a talent rarely equaled.
And here, my prize, the Black Widow.
Isn't she lovely?...
And so deadly.
Her kiss is fifteen times as poisonous as that of the rattlesnake.
You see her venom is highly neurotoxic,
which is to say that it attacks
the central nervous system causing intense pain,
profuse sweating, difficulty in breathing,
loss of consciousness, violent
convulsions and, finally...
Death.
(lyric excerpt taken from Alice Cooper - The Black Widow)
