Yet at the same time, drawing upon his engineering background, he applied a methodical and experimental approach within his creative process in order to advance his artistic ideals.
Prior to World War I, he operated portrait studios in New York City and East Orange, New Jersey.
He set aside his writing on photography in 1925 and started instead to write fiction, beginning with short stories and two novels about student life at a boys' prep school in the fictional New England town of Lockport; he later followed with the five novels of his Roman Life and Times series, which have never been out of print since their initial publication.
He returned to writing on photography some eight years later, at the same time continuing his fiction-writing career, which came to a close in 1939 with the publication of Pugnax the Gladiator.
Anderson put an end to the disagreement by producing a wire-sharp picture of a dead mackerel on a plate.