Edward Weston

Edward Weston was one of the biggest figures of twentieth-century photography and one of the most influential. This essay is will Weston brilliance in creating beautiful and neutral views of patterns and ordinary shapes, made him internationally acknowledged (Travis 2001, p. 63). Travis (2001) claimed that over the years Edward Weston style had changed and he developed an ability to make his own life experiences into the fascinating subjects of his art.

However, in earlier days, that transformation of Weston works had been obscure to most scholars and enthusiasts because it was very elusive and his main subject taters were still mostly naked human forms and objects from the natural surroundings. He had begun to show hints of moods in his photography. Some viewers found his photographs of tide-pool rocks and cypress trees as painful, saddening. They took the tone of the peaceful ocean after a storm as depressive imagery. A higher level of compositional techniques was starting to show in Weston work from 1939 to 1940.

Masculine curves and feminine components, signs of living and dead, and a contrast of light and shadow in a single frame, embellished the photographs. Nevertheless, as Weston grew past his technical skills, he made images hat held more philosophical meanings and a bigger range of understandings. Some may think that his photographs from 1944 to 1948 reflect very thoughtful and more melancholy atmospheric images, possibly because of the conflicts of his divorce, his four sons’ entry into the military and the beginning of his Parkinson disease at that time. The series of landscapes he shot at Point Lobos in 1938 (Fig. ) undeniably mirrored Weston personal life more than any he had produced before (Travis 2001, p. 63). Meadow (1978, p. 55) suggested that, In Weston bibliographic works there was hidden interaction between model and the photographer. Weston made his photographs when his subject emotionally stimulates him. Weston (1939) wrote, “l am a realist, but not a literalism … “. Weston nude photographs were wonderful because there were trace of the interaction between Weston and his subjects. It is possible that what we see, what we respond to, is almost like the conversation between photographer and his subject.

Although, Weston perspective on what he was doing at the time was different. Truth was the only thing he wanted to demonstrate through his work (Meadow 1978, p. 55). Meadow (1978, p. 1) also stated Weston nude works had a spiritual implications to it. It was a very American way of thinking: that nudity was considered good for the body and also for the soul. However. Weston was a true formalist who visualized his prints meticulously. He reduced any chance of movement, alteration or accident during the process of the photo-shoot (Shelley 1976, p. 127).

Weston nude photographs are often shown as close-up shots of partial areas separated from the background, instead of being focused on entire objects upfront. There was no inner interpretation in favor of simple aesthetics of the presentation of the flesh. Weston has written in his Daybooks claiming that his creative work, his private life was separate. The diaries include many of his comments revealing frustrations with his momentary type of impressions and feelings (Shelley 1976, p. 127). Many of the images he produced during asses present the same features as the piece he made in 1942 (Fig. ) a naked female figure wearing nothing but a gas mask, leaned against the sofa, her body facing toward the camera. A spacious but old couch is repeating the verticals and the horizontals, and its also filling most of the whole picture.