Edward Weston (1886–1958; born in Highland Park, Illinois; died in Carmel, California) began to earn an international reputation for his portrait work in 1911. From 1923 to 1926 he turned increasingly to subjects such as nudes, clouds, and close-ups of rocks, trees, vegetables, and shells. Weston was a founding member of Group f/64, best known for their use of the large-format view camera, small-lens aperture, and contact printing, and for the goal of elevating photography to a high art at a time when it was only considered a form of documentation. On a Guggenheim Fellowship from 1937 to 1939, he photographed throughout the American West with Charis Wilson, his writing partner and muse. In 1948, Weston, who had been stricken with Parkinson’s disease several years earlier, made his last photograph. His Daybooks, records of his life as a photographer, were published in the 1960s. Nancy Newhall was a photo historian, writer, and acting curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1942 to 1946, where she organized a major retrospective of Weston’s work. She helped cofound Aperture in 1952. Ansel Adams was an iconic American photographer and environmentalist known for his awe-inspiring black-and-white photographs of the American West. Adams was a cofounder of Group f/64 and Aperture.

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Edward Weston (1886–1958; born in Highland Park, Illinois; died in Carmel, California) began to earn an international reputation for his portrait work in 1911. From 1923 to 1926 he turned increasingly to subjects such as nudes, clouds, and close-ups of rocks, trees, vegetables, and shells. Weston was a founding member of Group f/64, best known for their use of the large-format view camera, small-lens aperture, and contact printing, and for the goal of elevating photography to a high art at a time when it was only considered a form of documentation. On a Guggenheim Fellowship from 1937 to 1939, he photographed throughout the American West with Charis Wilson, his writing partner and muse. In 1948, Weston, who had been stricken with Parkinson’s disease several years earlier, made his last photograph. His Daybooks, records of his life as a photographer, were published in the 1960s. Nancy Newhall was a photo historian, writer, and acting curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1942 to 1946, where she organized a major retrospective of Weston’s work. She helped cofound Aperture in 1952. Ansel Adams was an iconic American photographer and environmentalist known for his awe-inspiring black-and-white photographs of the American West. Adams was a cofounder of Group f/64 and Aperture.

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