Edward Weston

Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958)

was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography."

He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft-focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however, he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.

Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies.

Some of his most famous photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
In 1947 Weston was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he stopped photographing soon thereafter. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.

Film and Paper
Prior to 1921 Weston used an orthochromatic sheet film, but after panchromatic film became widely available in 1921 he switched to it exclusively.
Notations he made about his exposures indicate that the film he used would be rated approximately equivalent to 16 on the today's ISO scale. This necessitated very long exposures when using his view camera, ranging from 1–3 seconds for outdoor landscape exposures to as long as 4 1/2 hours for still lifes such his peppers or shells.
He printed on several kinds of paper. Initially he used standard silver gelatin paper for his portraits and other early photos, but in Mexico he learned how to use platinum and palladium paper that was imported from England.


- Helena Salvo