During a holiday weekend, following the Labor Day holiday, André De Dienes and Marilyn Monroe set out to visit several California missions: first, the mission in San Juan Capistrano, then others further south, until the last one in San Diego. The missions are small cells where the Padres had once slept on primitive wooden bedsteads covered with a thin straw mattress.
De Dienes, a Hungarian-born photographer known for his poetic outdoor portraits, had first met Norma Jeane in 1945 when she was a young model under contract with the Blue Book Modeling Agency. He was immediately struck by her natural radiance and emotional depth in front of the camera.
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