Edward Weston

  Edward Weston was a American Photographer who is most best known for his high quality natural form, landscape, and his nude photography. Its is also said that he helped pioneered a modernist style that was characterized by the use of large format cameras that created sharply focused and detailed black and white images. "quintessentially American, and especially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West

Edward Weston was an American Photographer who is known for his high quality natural form, nude, and landscape photography. He was born in 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois. He got his first camera on his 16th birthday from his father, a Kodak Bull-Eye No. 2 which is a simple box camera. Soon after this his interest in photography grew and it lead him to purchasing his first camera which was a 5x7in view camera. He started to photograph in Chicago park and on the farm that his aunt owned. It was also around this time frame that he took part in the 1904 summer Olympics with his father in Men’s double round American archery. 

In 1904 his older sister May, who he was extremely close to due to losing their mother at a very young age. This left Weston feeling very isolated in Chicago now that his sister had left and eventually got a job in a local convince store. In 1906 he eventual moved out to California near his sister in what is now Glendale. This is where he decided that he truly wanted to pursue photography as his career but he needs more education so he moved back to Illinois to Effingham and enrolled int eh Illinois College of Photography. He did not graduate form the college due to him finishing the 9 month class in 6 months and the college wouldn’t give him a diploma unless he paid for the full 9 months so he moved back to California. He worked at the studio of George Steckel as a negative retoucher but soon left to work for a better known studios of the time under Louis Mojoneir where he learned how to operate a studio.

During this time he meet his first wife named Flora May Chandler through his sister’s family and quickly married her in early 1909. They had 4 children together and their eldest son also became a photographer like his father. In 1910 he opened his own studio near where his sister lived and named it “The Little Studio” where he worked alone in the first few years with help from his family. He was very critical during this time frame and it helped him gain more recognition for hsi work by magazines. He met Marthege Mather during this time frame and Weston was very interested in her life style due to her sexual preferences and he asked her to become his studio assistant and they worked together quiet closely for about a decade. 

In 1920 he met two people who were apart of the cultural movement of Los Angeles named Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, known as "Robo" and a woman he called his wife, Tina Modetti. The two of them were not married and only said that they were for the sake of Robo’s family. Modetti and Weston quickly felt attraction towards each other and soon became lovers. It was also around this time frame is when Weston started to photograph nude models with his wife and children being his first models and Mather who had at least three studies done of her. This is where he started to take more and more photos of nude models and Weston had relations with several of them. 

In 1923 Weston, his eldest son and Modetti went to Mexico and this forced Weston to look at things from a different perspective from how he was originally looking at the world. But when Weston and his son returned back to California in late 1924 Weston had started to destroy any journals that he had written before he went to Mexico and this when most of his relationships outside of Chandler fell apart with multiple different models he had been working with. After Westons relationship with Modetti fell apart he didn’t travel back to Mexico again. This is a photo of Modetti Weston took in 1921. 



Weston and his third eldest son Brett had started to photograph together and have exhibits with each other where they were both showing photos that they had taken. It was around this time that he met Bertha Wardell and started a new nude series with her and he also met Henrietta Shore, a Canadian painter and borrowed some of the shells that she had painted and took photos of them. In 1928 Weston and Brett made a trip to the Mojave Desert and this where Weston started to photograph landscapes. Soon Weston and Brett moved to San Francisco and then Weston moved to a cottage in Carmel where he started to take photos down at Port Lobos. 

In early 1930 he met photographer Sonya Noskiwiak and within 5 months they were living together and she became a model, muse, pupil for Weston. This is around the time that Weston also started to take close ups of fruit and vegetables and for the next several years he was doing exhibits. His most famous photo from this series being Pepper 30



But in 1934 he met Claris Wilson at a concert and Weston quickly fell for her much more than he did for the other women he had relations with in the past. He was facing a lot of finical difficulties due to the Great Depression but also supporting his wife and children which lead to him shutting down his studio in Carmel and moved to Santa Monica Canyon and opened another studio with his son Brett. Wilson quickly became Westons model and his agent of sorts where she was promoting his photography. 

In 1937 he received notice that he had won the Guggenheim Grant, making him the first photographer to ever win it. Him and Wilson eventually married in 1939. And during the war he did a few exhibits around when Pearl Harbor happened but he mainly started to take photos around Wildcats hill which was owned by Wilsons father but soon that came to a end when he started to suffer from symptoms of Parkinson’s disease which quickly took his strength, but he was still working on managing the printing of the photos he had taken. 

He died on New year day in 1958 and his sons decided to scatter his ashes on Pebbly beach on Port Lobos due to the influence Weston brought to the beach and the beach was later renamed Weston beach. 

This doesn't even touch like 30% of his life but I’m tired of this guys life. 

Link to Slideshow- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13b5905Oqds9sGs9vtdgKKDhEkSOmuy1sUBnqadoXRJI/edit#slide=id.g2b6021efe6d_0_50 

Sources- 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-weston-2720

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston#1886%E2%80%931906:_Early_life




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