NARRATOR:
Edward Weston liked to show ordinary things in extraordinary ways. With this photograph’s sharp focus and intense contrast between light and shadow, the sand dunes become a series of sweeping, overlapping forms. The extremely high horizon line adds to the abstraction—you can barely see the ocean at the very top of the picture.
Weston achieved all this without manipulating the photograph during the developing process, scorning what he called “technical tricks” and “incoherent emotionalism” in photography. He advocated instead a pure photography in which the final form of the image is resolved as the photographer focuses the camera. He or she must feel the perfection of that image by looking through the lens and choosing the perfect arrangement of light and dark forms. He said:
WESTON (ACTOR):
“The shutter’s release fixes forever these values and forms—developing [and] printing become only a careful carrying on of the original idea. Those who feel nothing, or not completely at the time of exposure, relying upon subsequent manipulation to reach an unpremeditated end, are predestined to failure.”
Dunes, Oceano
1936
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Not on View
Weston was one of the twentieth century's most influential photographers. Talented and ambitious, Weston quickly established a reputation of national prominence. Inspired by the "straight" photographic methods of photographers such as Paul Strand and Alfred Stieglitz, Weston worked in a manner that he believed "truthfully represented natural objects [without] trick, device or subterfuge." Weston is best known for his landscape photographs, his nudes, and a highly original series of close-up, organic forms such as shells, eggplants, and cabbages.
Details
- Artist Name: Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
- Title: Dunes, Oceano
- Date: 1936
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 7-7/16 x 9-1/2 in. (18.9 x 24.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mr. Shirley C. Burden, in memory of Flobelle Fairbanks Burden
- Accession Number: PH.1970.142
- Copyright: © 2023 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
Edward Weston: Still Life Photographs
- Norton Simon Museum, 1991-10-03 to 1992-05-17
The Collectible Moment: Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum
- Norton Simon Museum, 2006-10-13 to 2007-02-26
- Gloria Williams, The Collectible Moment: Catalogue of Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum, 2006, cat. 455 p. 278
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