#000071
The Daybooks of Edward Weston
Edward Weston
The Daybooks of Edward Weston are the private journals of one of the twentieth century's greatest photographers—an unusually candid record of an artist thinking his way toward a new way of seeing. Weston kept these daybooks from 1923 into the 1940s, and Aperture's edition, edited by Nancy Newhall with a foreword by Beaumont Newhall, gathers them in two volumes: Volume I, Mexico, covering his intense, bohemian years in Mexico City with Tina Modotti, and Volume II, California, following his return to Carmel and the mature work—peppers, shells, dunes, nudes—for which he is best known. Alongside black-and-white plates of the photographs, the journals track his struggles with money, love, and above all his relentless pursuit of the “significant presentation” of things themselves. Intimate, self-critical, and often beautiful, they are a classic of the literature on photography. For anyone serious about the medium, or about the artist's inner life, they're indispensable.
more…less ▴
The author
Edward Weston (1886–1958) was among the most influential American photographers of the twentieth century, a founder of Group f/64 and a master of sharp-focus, precisely composed images of the nude, the still life, and the Western landscape.
The book
Weston kept his "daybooks"—working diaries—from 1923 to 1943. Edited by Nancy Newhall and published by Aperture, with a foreword by Beaumont Newhall, they appear as two volumes: Mexico, on his years there with Tina Modotti, and California, on his return and the great Carmel-period work. Photographic plates accompany the text.
How to read it
As a record of an artist's mind rather than a memoir shaped for readers. The pleasure is in their immediacy—Weston reasoning about seeing, doubting himself, and refining the vision that made him famous.
For more context
Read alongside Weston's photographs themselves and Nancy Newhall's other writings on the medium.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Edward Weston
- Publisher
- Aperture
- Place of publication
- Millerton, New York
- Year
- 1973
- ISBN
- 0-912384-45-2
- Format
- Paperback
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Maine
Vol. I Mexico / Vol. II California — verify which