Edward Weston was an American photographer, born on March 24, 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois, near Chicago. When he was 16 years old, he got his first camera and knew this was something he would want to pursue for the rest of his life. At age 21, Weston moved to California, where he spent the rest of his life. He took most of his famous photographs in Point Lobos, California of the trees and rocks. His photography was mainly of the American West and all of his photos were of a very organic subject matter, whether it was the sharp brilliant sand dunes, nudes, vegetables, trees, rock formations, cacti, shells, water, or human faces. Edward Weston used an 8x10 view camera and shot 1,400 negatives with it. He was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, which then funded the rest of his photographic endeavors. In 1947, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was unfortunately unable to take any other photographs. He died on January 1, 1958, but his second and fourth sons were both photographers, after their father’s tradition.
One of the photos that stood out to me was Aspen Valley, New Mexico in 1937. Weston takes very organic photographs, but there is something about this photo that seemed very geometric to me. Even though the image is of trees, a mountain, the sky and cloud, and some tall grass—all very organic items—the layout of this photo is very geometric. The trees have no leaves and are all the same, tall, skinny tree. They look like repetitive vertical lines or rectangles throughout the center of the photo. The trees seem to be the main focus of this image. The mountain behind the trees breaks up the photo into two sections: the trees and ground, and the sky. The sky half of the photograph is filled with horizontal clouds and they are the opposite of the vertical trees. The tallest trees are in the center of the image, where the tallest peak of the mountain is, mimicking each other and mimicking a bell curve shape. There is very little shadowing in this photograph, which tells me that the sun was directly behind Weston when he took it, or there was no sun out that day (according to the clouds). I think Edward Weston shows his talent of capturing a great depth of field: every aspect of the image is crisp and sharp. The shutter speed must have been relatively quick in order to capture the clouds, for if it was a long shutter speed, the clouds may look more blurred or combined because they could have been moving on that particular day he was photographing. I think the point of view of this photo is very centralized. He wants the viewer to be drawn to the center of the image, where the tallest trees and tallest peak of the mountain are. Only after looking at the tallest trees did my eyes look at the bottom of the photograph at the shorter bushes or pine trees. There are about three smaller trees at the bottom of the image, but positioned in the photo as to be centered: one on the left, one in the center, and one on the right. I think this parallels his idea for the viewers to be attracted to the center of the photo, then look outward from there.
