Few photographers have created such a legacy as Edward Weston (1886-1958). After a decade of successfully making photographs with painterly soft-focus techniques, Weston became the key pioneer of the school of precise and sharp presentation, dubbed “Straight Photography.” Through the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Weston was a major force in pushing forward the art of photography. His photographs are monuments of sensual realism, perfectly composed images of stillness that sear with passion and intensity. Whatever the subject, be it a vegetable, landscape, shell, or naked body, Weston’s lens captures the essence of its life force, the fundamentals of its form.

The author:
Terence Pitts is director of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, and has organized numerous important exhibitions of historic and contemporary photography.
The editor:
Manfred Heiting is an internationally renowned expert and collector of photography. He lives in Amsterdam and Los Angeles. He is on the board of the German Photographic Society, on the advisory council of the August Sander Archiv in Cologne, and on the board of fellows of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona.