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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

My 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.
EDWARD WESTON

Eye Ideas Matter Mind Switch
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

Hate Liars Support
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
EDWARD WESTON

Photographer Photography Reason
Is love like art – something always ahead, never quite attained.
EDWARD WESTON

Art Atatined Never Quit
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
EDWARD WESTON

Looks Photography Rocks
If I am interested, amazed, stimulated to work, that is sufficient reason to thank the gods, and go ahead!
EDWARD WESTON

Amazed Interest Reason
The great scientist dares to differ from accepted ‘facts’ – think irrationally – let the artist do likewise.
EDWARD WESTON

Artist Facts Thinking
Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.
EDWARD WESTON

Composition Strongest Way
I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect.
EDWARD WESTON

Lenses Photography Want
Clouds, torsos, shells, peppers, trees, rocks, smoke stacks, are but interdependent, interrelated parts of a whole, which is life.
EDWARD WESTON

Clouds Interdepend Rocks Tree
…through this photographic eye you will be able to look out on a new light-world, a world for the most part uncharted and unexplored, a world that lies waiting to be discovered and revealed.
EDWARD WESTON

Eye Light Lying
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

Essential Fog Rocks
Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision?
EDWARD WESTON

Eye Opportunity Vision
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

Cameras Matter Photography
I am not limiting myself to theories, so I never question the rightness to my approach.
EDWARD WESTON

Approach Theory
Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic.
EDWARD WESTON

Car Photography Yards
Art is based on order. The world is full of ‘sloppy Bohemians’ and their work betrays them.
EDWARD WESTON

Art Order World
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

Photography Steel Substance
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

Hard Work Matter Photography
No photographer is better than the simplest of cameras
EDWARD WESTON

Cameras Photographer Simplest
“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

Artist Lying Photography
……so called “composition” becomes a personal thing, to be developed along with technique, as a personal way of seeing.
EDWARD WESTON

Composition Technique Way
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

Art Believe Photography
…the pepper is beginning to show signs of strain, and tonight should grace a salad. It has been suggested that I am a cannibal to eat my models.
EDWARD WESTON

Grace Photography Salad
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 WESTON

Arrangement Cameras Facts Lack Men
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

Photography Records Strong
Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.
EDWARD WESTON

Courage Dare Fluid

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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