Photographer Spotlight: Edward Weston

Golden Gate #1. San Francisco, California, 2013

For this issue of the “Photographer Spotlight”, and to go with my image of the California icon above,  I’ll offer up another California icon, Mr. Pepper #30 himself, Edward Weston.

I saw his work at the Longmont, Colorado museum some time ago and then, just recently, I happened across a great documentary film about him (it was linked in a Cole Thompson e-newsletter) and found it to be very well done, if a bit corny now and then (especially the close ups of Weston’s wise and all-seeing visage, along with some of the syrupy narration).

Weston was one of the original founders of the famous Group f/64, and I have always admired his and their work. (The other original members: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, and Willard Van Dyke.)

The film you’ll see is an old 1948 government documentary called The Photographer, shot by fellow Group f/64 member, Willard Van Dyke.  Weston looks a bit frail and, indeed, he had only been recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease when this was filmed.

The big mystery…Who is his attractive and enthusiastic student? She is too young to be Sonya Noskowiak, one of his lovers, and nowhere can I find this woman listed in the credits. A little extra e-sleuthing tells me it is most likely Dody Weston Thompson, an excellent photographer in her own right, founder of Aperture magazine and the eventual wife of Edward’s son, Brett.

Anyway…Click the YouTube video link below, then sit back, relax, and learn for the next 26 minutes and 39 seconds.