Digital BW, The Print

To understand Weston, and understanding may be more worthwhile and
feasible than with most other "artistic" photographers, it's crucial
to own/read/re-read his Daybooks...particularly Daybook II. 

Weston did contain his technique and vision narrowly, but with
sensuality and with a great deal of justified personal artistic
egotism. He was perhaps Ayn Randian, openly opposed to "democracy" in
some of his writing. He admired and sounds similar to Robinson
Jeffers, the poet who was his peer in the Monterey Bay region. He
might also have been something like Henry Miller, another peer in the
region...but more personally conservative. Unlike Ansel Adams, Weston
was openly and directly disdainful of most other photographers,
especially of Steiglitz, who he correctly deemed a historic rival.
Steiglitz knew Picasso, New York, Europe...Weston knew Orozco, Mexico,
California.  

He was technically masterful within his narrow frame of reference, but
he was not technically capable of generic commercial photography due
to his personality, equipment, and hostility to artificial lighting.
His equipment was often literally falling apart. He could have made
serious money as a studio portrait photographer in San Francisco or
Los Angeles, was well-connected and famed for portraits, but he
couldn't have made it as an industrial photographer (a'la Ansel Adams)
due to his various choices. He stayed away from cities and disdained
serious efforts to develop his business (though was desperate often
for "sittings" and print sales).

I do think he'd be digital today, for the simplicity of it, for good
or ill. 

Djon

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Unger"
<ungram@v...> wrote:
> My take on Weston is that he didn't make much money from his art and 
> when he did spend a few bucks to advance his art, the first choice was 
> to travel for his personal work, the second was to invest in lenses 
> and cameras rather than darkroom stuff.  He got terrific results and 
> probably got a kick out of the fact that he could do so with such a 
> primitive darkroom.