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Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.

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
…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
“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
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

Photographer Photography Program
Results alone should be appraised; the way in which these are achieved is of importance only to the maker.
EDWARD WESTON

Makers Results Way
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
Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.
EDWARD WESTON

Composition Strongest Way
Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.
EDWARD WESTON

Courage Dare Fluid
The great scientist dares to differ from accepted ‘facts’ – think irrationally – let the artist do likewise.
EDWARD WESTON

Artist Facts Thinking
A photograph has no value unless it looks exactly like a photograph and nothing else.
EDWARD WESTON

Looks Photograph Values
I see no reason for recording the obvious.
EDWARD WESTON

Photographer Photography Reason
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
I always work better when I do not reason, when no question of right or wrong enter in,-when my pulse quickens to the form before me without hesitation nor calculation.
EDWARD WESTON

Form Pulse Reason
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
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
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

Important Photography Understanding
If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.
EDWARD WESTON

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

Art Order World
I am not limiting myself to theories, so I never question the rightness to my approach.
EDWARD WESTON

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

Composition Technique Way
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
…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
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
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
Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic.
EDWARD WESTON

Car Photography Yards
Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision?
EDWARD WESTON

Eye Opportunity Vision

Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.

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Dare to be irrational! – keep free from formulas, open to any fresh impulse, fluid.

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