Edward Weston is known as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Weston covered numerous topics during his 40 year career as a photographer, from; nudes, still life, landscapes and portraits Weston was a true master of photography. Still life is not a topic I have ever been particularly interested in as a photographer, but after seeing Weston’s stunning photo series featuring different fruit and vegetables especially ‘Pepper’ in 1930 my opinion of still life has been changed. ‘Pepper No. 30’ has become one of my favourite  photographs. This iconic image make the audience see a pepper as they have never seen one before. Still life is an investigation of object and this photograph is no exception.

Weston came from a nude photography background, the links between his nude work and his still life can be seen clearly in his pepper series. Weston’s genius use of lighting and object placement truly elevates this everyday object. This black and white image displays such a wide range of texture and curvature, the soft lighting on this object likens the pepper to a nude body. The dark background exuberates the intermit curves and shape of the pepper.

The Edward Weston pepper series has inspired the beginning of my photo object project, the set of Weston images has opened my eyes to how beautiful still life photographs can really be. This upcoming Monday I will completing my first still life studio shoot. We have been asked to bring in some objects to use in our still life photoshoots. In response to the Edward Weston pepper series I will be looking for unusual shaped fruit and vegetables. Sometimes in still life less is more as seen in Weston’s still life work, instead of over crowing my still life work I am going to try and focus on singular objects, I hope to use a macro lens to really get into the detail of the object I am photographing.