Personal Background
Edward Weston was born in Illinois, in 1886 and died in 1958. Weston got his first camera at sixteen and would photograph parks in Chicago, he later moved to California and would go to people homes and photograph children and pets. He then came back to Illinois to attend college at the Illinois College of Photography. Weston opened his own studio and became very talented in soft-focus and pictorial style photography. Later Weston traveled and started taking portrait photos and when he returned he started a series of close-up photos.
Style
Weston had different styles over time. He took sharp photos he liked lots of details in his pictures. He took still life's, close-ups, landscapes, and portraits. All his photos were in black and white. He did a lot of close-ups with shells and peppers. He worked a lot with Ansel Adams who also liked to take highly focused and detailed pictures.
Philosophy
After Weston visited the ARMCO Steel Plant in Middletown, Ohio he said he wanted his pictorialism style to have an emphasis on abstract and higher resolution, he wanted his photos to be true to reality. He later wrote "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." He wanted his photos to show life and reality.
Influences
nWeston worked with Ansel Adams later in his career, they both influenced each other. They both took high resolution and details pictures. They formed a group together with some other photographers who were like-minded and called themselves the Group f/64 like the aperture setting. Everyone in the group helped each other and influenced each others work.
In Weston's photo he took a picture of a door at a low angle, where as in my photo was taken from a higher angle. His photo only show part of the door and it is plain. My photo shows the whole door and has writing covering it. Lastly my photo is darker than Weston's photo.
The photo's were taken at different angles and the shells are different shapes. His background is solid and smooth and mine has texture. They both have similar brightness.
Weston's photo was taken from farther away and mine was taken from closer. My photo has a path leading the image, he has more of a foreground, middle ground, and background.