On March 24, 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois, Edward Henry Weston was born. Edward Burbank Weston his father was an obstetrician and his mother Alice Jeanette Brett, was an actress. When he was only five Weston’s mother Alice passed away. His elder sister Mary who was fifteen at the time established a positive relationship and took over the mothering for young Edward. Four years later when he was nine his father remarried. Neither child got along with their stepmother. He attended Oakland Grammar School in Chicago, Illinois. When his older sister Mary was married and moved out, young Edward became his parents’ sole focus. He withdrew from school and stayed home.
After receiving a Kodak Bull’s Eye camera from his father for his sixteenth birthday, he began his photography career. At the beginning his photography career he took pictures of Chicago’s parks and his aunts farm. In 1906 he was published in a magazine. Later that year he moved to California in search of money. He went door to door and was taking pictures of pets, people and funerals to make a few extra dollars. After two years he moved back to Chicago and began studying at the Illinois College of Photography. He excelled and finished the twelve-month course he was taking in six months. Weston returned to California, where he was hired to re-touch photographs at the George Steckel Portrait Studio in Los Angeles. In 1909 he was hired as a photographer at the Louis A. Mojoiner Portrait Studio. He found and married his wife Flora Chandler, who he later had four children with.
After three years Edward Weston opened his own photography studio in Tropico, California where he would spend the next twenty years of his life. He worked on soft focus, pictorial style prints. These prints won him many awards and recognition. He gained an international reputation and premiered in many magazines such as American Photography, Photo Miniature, and he published many articles about his work. In the summer of 1920
Bibliography: 1. http://www.edward-weston.com/edward_weston_biography.htm 2. http://www.art-support.com/edwardweston.htm 3. http://dailydemocrat.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/photograph-sniper-the-body/ 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Weston_(photographer) -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. (Also know as “Robo”)