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Edward Weston Research Paper

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Edward Weston was born during the spring of March 24, 1886, in Highland Park, Illinois. He was the only son out of the two kids. His older sister, Mary, who was nine years older than him ended up being his mother figure after their mother, Alice Jeanette Brett, died when he was just 5 years old. He would call her “May” or “Maize” and they were very close to each other and it was one of the most important relationships in Edward Weston’s life. Especially after their father, Edward Burbank Weston, remarried a woman with another son. They both did not get along with their step-mother or step-brother. Though they did not get along with the new additions to the family that did not mean that they didn’t get along with their father.
His father encouraged …show more content…

Many things ended up impacting his style of photography and one of his favorite muses were his lovers. He had many love affairs that continuously made him grow as an artist since he liked different things about them. His first love affair took place in the year of 1913 with a woman by the name of Margrethe Mather. She influenced him to go from the pictorialist style to more of a landscape and nudist photographer. He started photographing nature such as plants and vegetables and nudes.
His second lover, Tina Modotti, inspired him to go to Mexico where he ended up opening up a photography studio which he opened up in the year of 1923. He came to be one of the great photographers of the region. Several Mexican artists of the time, including Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros and Jose Orozco, called him a pioneer of 20th century art which is one of the highest compliments you can receive from your fellow artists.
Tina Modotti didn’t turn out to be his final love affair though and in 1934, he met Charis Wilson. They started a passionate whirlwind relationship which ended up with him taking several intimate photographs of her which included one photo that would later become one of his most famous works of art titled, “Nude, Santa Monica, 1936”. This photo portrayed her posing nude on a balcony in Santa …show more content…

He believed that no matter what the subjects are, they can be vegetables, landscapes, shells or bodies, he was able to capture the essence of its life force and the fundamentals of its form. (all made of the same thing, same building blocks of life) Johnston also states that “it’s not the camera, but his eyes. He is a man who can search energetically and patiently for the places he likes.” He empowers his prints with an intrinsic grace and elegance. I learned that his photographs combine the essential of physical assion with a desire to go beyond the transitory to a discovery of eternal form. His works are monuments of sensual realism. In his search for the ideal, Weston concentrated on the fundamental physical aspects of his subjects. Johnston says that “looking at his photographs, it is often interesting to forget what they are about. To ask not what the pictures are but what the shape reminds me are.” The lines and shapes in his photographs often lead people to think deeper below our conscious

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