The artist: Edward Weston
Edward Weston’s 8 best photographs
- Edward Weston is a photographer who takes photos on common subjects such as vegetables, fruits, and plants. He emphasizes the ordinary but unique textures of the subjects which gives a shocking impression. For example, his most famous photograph, Pepper No.30 gives no clue that the subject is just a green pepper. Weston takes the photographs in black and white for the majority of the time, creating more focus on the subject. I really like the way he focuses on patterns and shapes so that expresses the photograph in a more abstract way. Sometimes, it is difficult to decipher what is the subject of the photograph. This relates deeply with my vision of abstract photograph, so if I learn how to take photographs with dark stages, I will try to take it similar to Weston’s. Additionally, there is a quote from Edward Weston: “Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision?”, which helped me to understand his work ethics right away.
Edward Weston- Pomegranate
This photo is one of the abstract photo taken by Weston, can be also seen on the gallery above. Unusually, the subject of this photo is a fruit. It is quite difficult to express abstract natures of fruits because the refreshing basic characterization that every fruits contain. Knowing this fact, Weston effectively(although he does this on every photograph) utilized black&white techniques to emphasize the element and abstract features of the photograph. Along with that, another thing that surprises me is that it took a certain time to completely realize that the subject is a pomegranate. Of course, I definitely knew that it was a photograph of a fruit, but it took me about 5seconds or so to perceive the subject precisely. There are a lot of elements that are shown in this photograph: texture, lines, shapes, and patterns, but the one that attracts me most is texture of the pomegranate. The unique, smooth, white line and scattered pieces of oval-shaped pomegranate beads creates abstract beauty. I think that this point is important because it is a texture of a fruit. It is very hard to think of unique texture of a fruit; the majority of the fruits have no patterns. It is also valuable since the texture and pattern is not that repetitive, giving the audience to look at more different sides of the photographs without getting bored. The photograph is very abstract because it does not focus on the fruit itself but gives beauty on the texture. In terms of style, it is favorable that it is direct and ordinary but creates different charm. I am going to adapt the style, without any colors and repetitive patterns. Edward Weston, especially “Pomegranate” inspires me to pick an ordinary object and emphasize texture.
My Revised State of Intent
My vision is to focus on the beauty of elements rather than the beauty of the subject itself. The theme that I want to show to the audience to to make them think what the subject is by focusing on the lines or texture of the subject. I really want the audience to not see only the direct subject of the photo but first watching the abstract nature, since it is an abstract photo. Relatively, I will take photos in style of Edward Weston, who can even make rotten banana peels beautiful. Like Weston, does, I want to find out how to take care of light focus when I take the photo in black&white technique. I am particularly inspired by “Pepper No.30” and “Pomegranate” and will try to take pictures that contains multifarious elements. In conclusion, I think that Weston’s and my views are clearly linked through trying to make ordinary things, which are basically thought to take original pictures, strangely beautiful.
ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY SET 2
The Yellow Section
I took about 100 photos and I chose 22 out of them. While taking the photographs, my main focus was to take pictures that emphasized lines and textures, or even both. For example, I took photos of a linear building, pipes, rails, and fences to show lines. Additionally, I took photos of a wall or floor to express textures. The reason that differentiated with 22 photos and others was that other ones was because of two. One: did the photograph looked abstractly beautiful? Two: does the photograph emphasize the formal elements of abstract photograph. In my opinion, every photos in my contact sheet above look equally abstract to me.
The Green Selection
(TO see the below image more clear, please right click&open link in new tab)
Out of the Yellow Selection, I compressed those photographs into 9 pictures. I had the same photography “philosophy” like the yellow one. The differences between the yellow and green was that it contained one, more focused and beautiful as abstract. For example, the last photograph in the yellow selection contained a complicated mixture of elements. Although it seemed abstract, it did not seemed as focused and beautiful when compared by other photograph. I thought that when audience saw the photo, they would just perceive it as distracting and confusing to comprehend the meaning, That way, that photo might have been made it through the green selection when observed by other people, but when evaluated by me, it was insufficient to make it. Additionally, obsessed with photographers Andreas Gursky and Edward Weston at that time, I tried to take out photos that were mainly taken of lines.
The Red Selection is my best 3 out of my photographs. In my opinion, those three are the most beautiful pieces out of the Green Selection. To be more attentive to detail, there are individual evaluation for each of the three photos.
The first photo is about a metal fence. The metal fence does nothing with abstract photograph, apparently. However, what I found interesting and leading to Top 3 of the photo was the rusted part of the fence. The orange, rusted part of the fence actually created two lines at the center of the photo, which created abstract beauty. That way, the photo created beauty through direct focus on lines.
The second photo is a pink pipe. In 798 art station, people can see a lot of photos like that since originally it was a factory center. However, the pipe was painted pink, and more interestingly, there was abstractly beautiful vertical lines. There were also grains of brown rice plants, which created more focus and gave soothing affect to the photo. Ultimately, the photo made it to the Top 3.
The third photo can look quite common. It is a photo of a speed bump with car just about head towards it. At first, it can just look as street photography, irrelevant to abstract ones. However, the speed bumps can be seen as an abstract line. It is a vertical line that spreads out to the whole road. This photograph mainly focuses on lines, which I am biased on. It might seem insufficient for an abstract one, but it satisfies my own, special vision.
Overall, I tried to take photos that only focused on one abstract element. But I need to improve on the use of color and light because some of them did not look abstract as I wanted to be. On next time, I would try to focus on how to take photos blurry and from a high location. It might be impossible, but I think the photograph would be more beautiful when I do it like that. Additionally, I will work on how to control the use of light when taking the picture.
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