TRANSFORMED how we see bodies, peppers, toilets, & PHOTOS as an artform

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Throughout this photographer's life, he became one of the most influential and innovative photographers to ever come out of America. Over a 40-year career, he made photos that covered a myriad of genres and subjects. These included still lifes, nudes, portraits, landscapes, and industrial scenes that all had a consistent style regardless of what he put in the frame. This is insight for inspiration, Edward Weston.

[00:00:25]Edward Weston was born in 1886. At 16, Weston began photographing Chicago parks and his family's farm, as well as developing and printing images himself.

[00:00:35]This early work still showed promise. As Weston himself reflected later in his life, "I feel that my earliest work of 1903, though immature, is related more closely both with technique and composition to my latest work." Weston built on those early photos through a formal education that was short-lived, but still helped him develop significantly. He completed a 9-month course at the Illinois College of Photography in 6 months, then moved to California. Studio work under various masters provided technical discipline and business experience. A short time later, he opened his own studio called The Little Studio. There, he worked methodically, often making multiple exposures to reach the precise results that he was looking for. Reflecting on this, he stated, "Photographic plates are nothing to me unless I get what I want. I've used 30 of them in a sitting.

[00:01:26]If I did not secure the effect to suit me." Early success came through Pictorialism. By using soft focus, atmospheric effects, and painterly compositions, Weston aligned himself with the era of photography that looked to establish the medium as a serious art form. Accomplishing standout work at the time resulted in exhibitions and awards that reinforced the power of what he was creating. But he became dissatisfied with creating these images. He began rejecting Pictorialism in the early 1920s. Exposure to modern painting and photography, including work by Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, shifted his work towards clarity and structure. The change became visible in photographs of industrial sites, such as the Armco Steel Works in Ohio. Reflecting on this work in one of his daybooks, Weston wrote, "The Middleton visit was something to remember. Most of all in importance was my photographing of Armco. That day I made great photographs. Even Stieglitz thought they were important." Smokestacks and industrial forms replaced soft imagery.

[00:02:28]By putting an emphasis on geometry and detail, in regard to the shift in style, he stated, "The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself."

[00:02:41]Another project that pushed him further away from Pictorialism involved photos he created in Mexico. At this time, ordinary objects became the central focus of what he created. Doorways, bathroom fixtures, toys, and pottery were all involved.

[00:02:56]He used familiar objects to bring attention to their form instead of their function. A specific example of what could be found in these images was one created around a toilet that attempted to make it appear as much more of a sculpture instead of what it was actually functionally designed to do.

[00:03:13]After his time in Mexico, Weston returned to California. Weston's work also evolved during this period as he focused on mostly close-up work.

[00:03:22]He used cropping to isolate objects and miscellaneous items that began to make up his frames. Things like shells and vegetables were used to draw attention to their surface and textures. Since the makeup of any given item became the subject that these images centered around, some of those objects could take on new forms.

[00:03:40]Cabbage leaves resembled draped fabric, and nudes became landscapes. A photo titled Pepper No. 30 stands out as the best example of accomplishing what Weston wanted to do with his work. At first glance, this image can appear to be a photo of a human body. On this work, Weston stated, "Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph. Not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual." Through this mentality, most objects were so much more about the form and the shape instead of working towards creating images that represented exactly what something was. Weston took on similar kinds of considered measures to take on landscape photography. He felt he would have a hard time with the genre if he stuck to the straight photography approach that he had been developing. In his words, "This difficulty came for the obvious reasons that nature, unadulterated and unimproved by man, is simply chaos." He found the control that he desired in that chaos by moving his attention once again to the smaller details of the world. Fragments of roots, rocks, and kelp, for example, allowed him to continue his study of forms and shapes over recreations of environments.

[00:04:52]This eventually expanded into broader views and larger horizons, but they were still captured in a way that was structured and controlled.

[00:05:00]These ideas came through more clearly with the formation of Group f/64. The goal of this group was to create images with maximum depth of field and full tonal range that were also unmanipulated. The group's manifesto defined the way that they would create photos, stating, "Group f/64 limits its members and invitational names to those workers who are striving to define photography as an art form by simple and direct presentation through purely photographic methods. The group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards [music] of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition, or idea derivative of any other art form. The production of the Pictorialist, on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts.

[00:05:52]The members of Group f/64 believe that photography, as an art form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself." Group f/64 used small apertures, large format cameras, and contact printing to define their technical approach. They also separated themselves from the ideas that were forming on the East Coast at the time.

[00:06:24]For example, ideas that moved photography into a place where it was influenced by the art of the Cubist movement. Avoiding this influence, West Coast photographers developed their own style and practices.

[00:06:36]While Weston was making strides into other genres of photography, he was also exploring nudes. Many of them were abstract and focused on curves and forms over representing the body as a whole or in a more straightforward manner. To accomplish this, cropping was heavily involved so that a person was still visible, but particular body parts became the subject of the frame instead of any individual. His quote that, "I see no reason for recording the obvious," sums up his continued attention to what he was creating.

[00:07:08]Technical control and understanding [music] of how photography worked was the foundation of all the photos Weston made, and experience was central to how Weston went about creating these images.

[00:07:19]In regard to how he exposed an image, he stated, "I dislike to figure out time, and find my exposure is more accurate when only felt." Although he stated this, timers must have been used in certain situations because with the large format photos he made using low ISO films, outdoor brightly lit scenes could be accomplished in just a few seconds. But there are records of times when he used the same film indoors, and exposures took up to 4 and 1/2 hours.

[00:07:45]Printing was another major part of the process for Edward Weston and Group f/64. On this process, according to Sarah Lowe in the book Edward Weston: The Mexico Years, when he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create larger interpositive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size.

[00:08:12]This process was very labor-intensive.

[00:08:15]He once wrote in his daybooks, "I'm utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in [music] the darkroom making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives." Weston would make in many daybooks throughout his career that recorded his technical decisions and artistic concerns. Going through these daybooks gives insights into how his thoughts about photography evolved over time. One of these concepts was previsualization, or the idea that how the final print would look was in his mind before even taking that exposure.

[00:08:44]So that everything he did in creating a photo was purposely done to work towards the final result that he had in his mind. In his later career, the Guggenheim funds he was able to secure made it possible for [music] him to travel to more diverse locations while focusing on maintaining the same approach wherever he went. This can be seen throughout roughly 1,400 negatives that he created during this period.

[00:09:07][music] Recognition for his work grew through exhibitions and publications. Major retrospectives, including one on the Museum of Modern Art, placed his work within a broader historical context.

[00:09:20]Books such as 50 Photographs represented a curated selection, reinforcing the cohesiveness of his vision.

[00:09:28]Near the end of his life, Parkinson's disease limited his physical ability and ended his photographic career in 1948, at which point work only continued through the supervision of his printing process of older work.

[00:09:40]>> [music] >> On the work he created, Weston stated, "My true program is summed up in one word, life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me. When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Edward Weston's life and work should inspire us not to pigeonhole ourselves into one subject or genre.

[00:10:05]There's so much to explore throughout this life.

[00:10:07]So, if social media has suggested to you to niche down, you should really be looking to open up and broaden your view to create work that is rich and full of experience.

[00:10:17]Thanks for watching. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. And until next time, keep developing.