For the obvious reason that nature – unadulterated and unimproved by man – is simply chaos. In fact, the camera proves that nature is crude and lacking in arrangement.
EDWARD WESTONMy own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera’s eye may entirely change my idea, even switch me to different subject matter. So I start out with my mind as free from image as the silver film on which I am to record, and I hope as sensitive.
More Edward Weston Quotes
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The photograph isolates and perpetuates a moment of time: an important and revealing moment, or an unimportant and meaningless one, depending upon the photographer’s understanding of his subject and mastery of his process.
EDWARD WESTON -
When money enters in – then, for a price, I become a liar – and a good one I can be whether with pencil or subtle lighting or viewpoint. I hate it all, but so do I support not only my family, but my own work.
EDWARD WESTON -
There is nothing like a Bach fugue to remove me from a discordant moment… only Bach hold up fresh and strong after repeated playing. I can always return to Bach when the other records weary me.
EDWARD WESTON -
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.
EDWARD WESTON -
Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.
EDWARD WESTON -
……so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.
EDWARD WESTON -
Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision?
EDWARD WESTON -
Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be.
EDWARD WESTON -
To compose a subject well means no more than to see and present it in the strongest manner possible.
EDWARD WESTON -
To see the Thing itself is essential: the quintessence revealed direct without the fog of impressionism… This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock. Significant presentation – not interpretation.
EDWARD WESTON -
“Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed “artists”.”
EDWARD WESTON -
I was extravagant in the matter of cameras – anything photographic – I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest – or without.
EDWARD WESTON -
The painters have no copyright on modern art!… I believe in, and make no apologies for, photography: it is the most important graphic medium of our day. It does not have to be, indeed cannot be – compared to painting – it has different means and aims.
EDWARD WESTON -
Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.
EDWARD WESTON -
My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.
EDWARD WESTON