Edward Weston: 1886-1958 (Photo Book Series)

This is an elegant book, designed and printed in Germany, with an essay by Terence Pitts, of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. It presents 180 of Weston's finest images, including many--such as the pines of Point Lobos, the sand dunes of Oceano, and his stark, unadorned nudes--that have become icons. Whereas the photographs of Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy were, to Weston's eyes, hopelessly mannered, his images are elemental, organic, and in harmony with nature's rhythms. Weston spent most of his working life in Mexico and California, and much of his work, replete with shadows, is illuminated with the harsh light of those places. In 1932, he and Ansel Adams founded the influential photographic collective Group f/64, named after the lens-aperture size that exposed an image at its most detailed and clear. This was Weston's aesthetic: to show the real world in its unrelieved integrity rather than create an imaginary construct. He was concerned with visual truth, not with character or storytelling. Weston was a true pioneer whose rigorous vision permanently changed the ways we see the world around us. --John Stevenson

Product Description
Few photographers have created such a legacy as Edward Weston (1886-1958). After a decade of successfully making photographs with painterly soft-focus techniques, Weston became the key pioneer of the school of precise and sharp presentation, dubbed "Straight Photography." Through the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Weston was a major force in pushing forward the art of photography. His photographs are monuments of sensual realism, perfectly composed images of stillness that sear with passion and intensity. Whatever the subject, be it a vegetable, landscape, shell, or naked body, Weston's lens captures the essence of its life force, the fundamentals of its form.

Before going into a description of this book, let me further caution those of you who do not know Edward Weston that he much favored nude photographs of women and had intimate relations with many women in his life which are described in Terence Pitts' interesting essay. If such things offend you, I suggest that you avoid this volume.

"Edward understood thoughts and concepts that dwell on simple mystical levels." -- Ansel Adams

It is appropriate that this volume contains some comments by Ansel Adams about Edward Weston. The two have many similarities in their work, and were friends. Both were attracted to the underlying grandeur of nature, and looked for the connectedness in all things (a sort of fractal-based perspective on unity). Weston was especially successful in integrating images of people with his nature images.

The works speak for themselves. "Edward Weston, contrary to so many now practicing photography, never verbalized on his own work." -- Ansel Adams

The potential for each of us from considering these images is very great from Adams' point of view. "You might discover, through Edward Weston's work, how basically good you are, or might become."

Edward Weston was formally trained to be a studio photographer, and soon sought to escape the limitations of doing commercial portraits. He was very skilled in this area, and there was always demand for his work. After 1930, he was able to stop retouching portraits which was a great relief to him.

Nature always fascinated him, and in the latter part of his life he was able to focus on the potential of his work rather than on eking out a living. In the 1930s he received the first Guggenheim Fellowship to travel for photography, and made good use of this to see locales he would not otherwise have reached.

Weston's influence is important in the 20th century for establishing photography as an art, rather than as representation.

Weston did his best work in California and Mexico, where he traveled extensively. I was also impressed with his industrial photography, which I had not seen much of before. He had an amazing eye for form in industrial settings and in designs of mundane objects.

The images here are well reproduced in almost all cases, and the size of the pages is excellent for the images involved.

Here are my favorites from the images in this superb book:

Epilogue 1919

Sunny Corner in an Attic 1920

Ruth Shaw 1922

Armco Steel 1922

Lois Kellog 1923

Rose Roland, Mexico 1926

Shell 1927

Shells 1927

Cabbage Leaf 1931

Cypress Root, Seventeen Mile Drive 1929

Cypress Root and Succulents, Point Lobos 1930

Bedpan 1930

Charis 1934

Sheels and Hill, San Juan 1934

Dunes (5), Oceano, 1936

Iceberg Lake 1937

Juniper, Lake Tenaya 1937

Nude (#4 and #5) Oceano 1936

Dante's View, Death Valley 1937

Church Door, Hornitos, California 1940

Potato Cellar, Lake Tahoe 1937

Stonecrop and Cypress, Point Lobos 1939

I believe that a rewarding way to enjoy this work even more is to give yourself the equivalent of a Guggenheim fellowship for a shorter period of time, and visit many of the locales where Edward Weston produced these images. Take along your camera, and see what you can capture for yourself. It will increase your appreciation of what he saw, and the issues of capturing it for others.

Enjoy the beauty around you, in all of its natural forms.


a modern classic   August 13, 1999
 18 out of 19 found this review helpful

An excellent and well documented introduction to Weston's oeuvre and philosophy. One of the true and underrated innovators in photography. If you love Adams, Depardon or Cartier Bresson's landscapes,welcome home ! Some stunning pictures of the desert. Very very good repro quality. Buy with confidence.