Edward Weston by Dion McInnis

(c) Dion McInnis for Community Zoe, 2005 All rights reserved. Photos copyright Edward Weston unless otherwise noted.

“IS reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impress’d with your personality?

O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.”

Walt Whitman, “To A Pupil”

Edward Weston (1886-1958), who at one time was funded to take photographs around the country to illustrate Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” clearly personified Whitman’s call in the poem “To a Pupil.” Weston, riveting himself of his personality, sought great reform in photography, using his vision and genius to break the mold of the pictorial period of photography. He succeeded.

Like many photographers, his love affair with photography began when he was young, thanks to a present given to him by his dad. Somewhat of a loner and nonconformist all his life, his photography and darkroom time provided him avenues for creation, solitude and discovery. Fiercely passionate about photography, as well as his other causes, he expressed his feelings in his images, including portraits, nudes, still lifes and industrial shots. A bohemian soul from a Midwestern upbringing, Weston enjoyed wine, dance, Beethoven and bullfights; his hunger for stimulation drove his photographic discoveries and interpretations.

Charis Wilson, perhaps his most famous muse who he eventually married and then divorced, recalled when she first met Weston. ““His large, intense brown eyes held a playfully wicked gleam as they looked over me. What was important to me was the sight of someone who quite evidently was twice as alive as anyone else in the room, and whose eyes most likely saw twice as much as anyone else’s did.” This power of vision and energy was bundled in a small package; his massive tripod and view camera were not much smaller than the photographer. Weston worked in a time of glass plates and large view cameras. Later, he added the Graflex film camera to his arsenal.

Weston did, indeed, see much and was very alive. We are privileged to realize this because he had a wonderful habit of recording his thoughts, trials and tribulations in daybooks. The first volumes he burned, except for a few select passages, but decades hence were recorded dutifully, providing incredible insight into the complicated artist. He quit his ritual of the daybooks, usually written in the early morning hours, not long after he and Charis married in 1934. In his writings, he conveyed his thoughts on creativity: “…peace of mind and an hour’s time, given these, one creates. Emotional heights are easily attained, peace and time are not. Yesterday I ‘created’ the finest series of nudes I have ever done, and in no exalted state of mind. The ‘peace of mind’ aforementioned I would indicate as that state of being, in which one is reasonably free from petty worries of material sort: the heart-ache of tragedy is not so devastating as the belly-ache of poverty. A broken heart is more easily cured than a shriveled stomach.”

He started his profession by going door-to-door taking portraits. From the time he was taking photographs to make a living, to the time he was involved with some of the most influential photographers of the century, he re-examined his work with a stringent, self-critical eye. In 1920 he simplified his style to contact prints only, instead of enlargements, and without “corrective” retouching. He also wrote that to crop the final print was to have to admit failure to see in a creative way. He also helped form the society named “Group f.64” which challenged pictorial photography . He joined the likes of Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and other notables in photographic history in their effort to move photography toward realism.

His love for his art did not always pay the bills. He constantly had to battle his desire to create art with his need to make money. He hated money, and loathed those who had more money than intellect. He wrote “When I reached Mexico City my first move was to establish a business—why? To attempt to make money—why?—for my family—you know my personal contempt and disregard for money.”

What he held in high regard was his sons. He writes of them often in his daybooks, and a collection of years of correspondence between him and his son Cole were published in a book titled “Laughing Eyes,” a nickname he had for Cole. Two of his sons became notable photographers in their own right, and his grandson, Kim Weston, carries on the family line. Edward’s and Cole’s work can be found at www.edward-weston.com.

Weston is perhaps best known for his nudes. He abhorred imperfection, in his prints or in the bodies he photographed, and though he loved women, he did not admire their intellect or abilities, nor did he hold them as equals, save for a few exceptions. Charis Wilson explained his ways in an interview years ago: “During photographic sessions, Edward made a model feel totally aware of herself. It was beyond exhibitionism or narcissism, it was more like a state of induced hypnosis, or of meditation. Curiously, he could do much the same thing without his camera.”

His personality would have made Whitman proud. He used the manner that Charis described to create images unlike any others of the time. She said, “The only photographic nudes that I had previously known were the ‘Art Poses’ to be found in well-equipped newsstands. These were romantic, very misty ladies, dewy makeup on retouched faces, depilated bodies from which all telltale suggestion of real skin had been removed, sitting or standing awkwardly in shadowy boudoir settings.” His images of women’s bodies, his portraits and still lifes, and the nudes of his young son, broke ground for generations. Amidst a fabulous career were many women. It was not uncommon for his muse to become his lovers, even if for only a short period of time. These women were more than subject matter, however. Each provided an energy to his creativity and his life; his personality was fed by women and his personality created masterpieces.

Kahlil Gibran wrote in his cornerstone work, “The Prophet”: “A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.” Written in 1923, these words of Weston’s era describe well in a fictional masterpiece the reality women’s role in Weston’s life: each woman gave Weston a new life, a new birth.

For all that Weston created, for all he expressed in his writings, for all the life he lived so fully, he still felt compelled to write “how little of what is within me has been released.”

Decades later, fate locked even more inside Weston. Parkinson’s disease slammed the door on his ability to create what his passionate soul and gifted eyes could conceive. In 1948 he created his last image at Point Lobos in California with the help of his son Brett. On January 1, 1958 he passed away.

Wildcat Hill, where Edward and Charis lived, is still maintained by Kim Weston and his wife, Gina. Bodie House, which was one Charis’ writing area, is available for rent for those wishing to steep in Weston spirits.

© copyright Dion McInnis 2005

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