“The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh…”
so wrote famous photographer Edward Weston in 1932. Weston immortalized the California coast and made shells sensual. He knew the greats from Ansel Adams to Georgia O’Keefe and was a great himself. But Weston began by peddling his real, sculptural photographs for mere dollars; in death, they have gone for millions. What made his view through the lens unique? Weston looked for what was real, no artifice, so that objects and landscapes were almost more real than the thing itself. He died in 1958 in his home in Carmel and his family continues the legacy.