William H. "Dad" Martin was a photographer who found success in the early 1900s by producing exaggerated postcards using trick photography. His postcards featured oversized images and appealed to Americans' sense of national pride and belief that anything is possible. The postcards became hugely popular, allowing Martin to sell his photography studio in order to focus solely on his postcard business. Within three years, the demand for Martin's trick photos made him a fortune. He later sold the postcard business and founded a sign company, but his brief career photographing exaggerated images tapped into Americans' imagination.

1. © Cenika William H. Martin (1865-1940) Did you ever have a dream like this?

2. © Cenika Tall Tales have an honored place in American culture . From Paul Bunyan and King Kong to the legions of fishermen boasting about "the one that got away," there is something about exaggeration that appeals to our sense of national grandeur. Perhaps it's also our view that in the modern world, anything is possible. Giant hybrid crops? Sure. Rabbits the size of Buicks? Well--maybe .

3. © Cenika Exactly this formula proved the key to oversize wealth and success for a photographer named William H. "Dad" Martin. In 1894, he took over a studio in Ottawa, Kansas. Martin began using trick photography in 1908, producing a series of wildly exaggerated post cards. These were so popular that he sold his studio the next year to concentrate on the post card business.

4. © Cenika Within three years, Martin's trick photos earned him a fortune. Demand was so strong that his firm reportedly purchased photographic emulsion by the railroad tank car-full (or was that another tall tale?) Martin sold the business in 1912 and founded the National Sign Company. So far as we know, he never again ventured into the darkroom. But during his brief career as a post card photographer, "Dad" Martin tapped into the national psyche with his own imaginative brand of homespun surrealism.