Digital BW, The Print

Djon said:

>Wrong, he used his SLR extensively for dancers, nudes.

For a short period around 1933 he used a 4x5 camera (which I guess is the 
"SLR" you're talking about) to make nudes of Sonya Noskowiak. I'm not sure 
what camera he used for his "dancer" photographs of Bertha Wardell. But the 
fact remains that the bulk of his mature work, and almost all of his best 
known work, was done with an 8x10 camera.

>No, they were brutally awkward to use >by comparison to Dursts etc.

Ansel Adams and Walker Evans, among innumerable others, seemed to manage 
o.k. with them.

>Kodabromide. He loved it.

I have no personal knowledge of what papers Weston used. However, I have 
some handwritten notes of Cole Weston's that include a list of his father's 
favorite papers. Kodabromide isn't one of them.

>He'd have a 4800 today.

I have no idea what Edward Weston would have today nor do I care. It does 
strike me as a little odd to think that a photographer who wouldn't even use 
a light meter long after they became popular and who made his prints by the 
light of a bare bulb at a time when enlargers were the norm would be using 
an ink jet printer that's been on the market for a week or two. But who 
knows, times change and people change, maybe he would have changed too.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Djon" <westsidemaurice@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 1:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Digital Weston


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Brian Ellis"
<bellis60@v...> wrote:
> Djon said:
>
> >Weston used the most technically >advanced camera that was available to
> >him at the time...that Graflex SLR.
>
> Actually Weston used the Graflex only for studio portraits and then
mostly
> in his early career as a commercial portrait photographer.

Wrong, he used his SLR extensively for dancers, nudes.


>
> >If you've seen the enlargers of the era >you understand why his poverty
> >wasn't the only reason he didn't own
> >one.
>
> "The era" in which Weston photographed was an approximate 40 year period
> extending from about 1915 to about 1955. The enlargers from that
time frame
> were fine.

No, they were brutally awkward to use by comparison to Dursts etc.
Physically huge, klunky. No fun. Didn't contribute anything to his
process anyway. He kept things simple.

> >I think the reason he made contact >prints was the simplicity. He used
> >the easiest process.

>
> I don't know what you mean about using the "most technically
advanced paper"

Kodabromide. He loved it.

He'd have a 4800 today.

Djon