Digital BW, The Print

It's presumptuous in the extreme to pronounce Weston's work in 1933
less than "mature."  I recall some peppers...

> 
> For a short period around 1933 he used a 4x5 camera (which I guess
is the 
> "SLR" you're talking about)

Yes, his Graflex was and remains an advanced large format SLR. It
seems unlikely that he used it only on the two occasions mentioned
below (I just flipped the Daybook II open randomly):

The portrait of Orozco was magnificent...at f6/3. SLR, of course. He
mentions that they were "augmented," meaning enlarged to 8X10 via
intermediate film using a camera. 

Here's the SLR, hand held at Point Lobos: "I printed several cow
negatives. They were certainly well-seen, but enlargements from
Graflex negatives, camera in hand, 1/10 sec., f/18, can hardly compare
with contacts from 8X10 on a tripod, stopped down beyond f/256! One
day I'll try the cows with 8X10." 

Cows at Point Lobos may have been slow in those days, but it's hard to
imagine them sitting still for EW's 8X10 at f/256 :-)

It makes no difference what Cole says, when he contradicts his father.
Root around in Daybook II and I think you'll find EW's mention of
Kodabromide. 

There's so much false info and romance connected with Weston that we
tend to forget that he was a visual pioneer.



 
> 
> >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.

Yes, but they weren't Weston's equal and they weren't Weston. 

> 
> >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.

I think Cole erred. Daybook II. I think Kodabromide's mentioned
enthusiastically, but I've not taken more than a few minutes to
surface these quotations. Maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm right. 

In any case, the same point: Here he raves about Dupont's fabulous and
long vanished Velour Black (on introduction in 1934). Velour Black was
the ultimate, a wonderful Dupont green-boxed enlarging paper...rivaled
only by Brovira and tray processed Kodak Ektamatic IMO:  "..it is so
much superior to the paper I had been using, that I changed without
hesitation. The blacks are richer, the whites clearer, and despite the
fact that it has more contrast, the shadows actually have more detail.
In othe words the paper has a longer scale or range from black to
white. Also the surface quality is more beautiful The prints I have
been making are a joy-almost as though I were printing from new
negatives-over 75 of them."

> 
> >He'd have a 4800 today.
> 
> I have no idea what Edward Weston would have today nor do I care.

I think it's good to fantasize about such things...one of the joys of
having heros. 

Edward Weston, with Minor White and Robert Capa are my Trilogy! I like
their photos and their legends, but I especially like the Daybooks,
read #2 dozens of times as a young man.  Those guys were originals,
not wannabes. EW was a cranky right wing type in today's frame of
reference, much like Jeffers. Capa was an athiestic Jewish wild man
and (actually) anti war, and White was a Zen practitioner. Interesting
to compare their relative self-aggrandizing. 

 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 

Nobody has suggested he did what was "popular." But he used very
common practices. 

and who made his prints by the 
> light of a bare bulb at a time when enlargers were the norm 

Common practice. I'll bet at least half of us have enjoyed 
that...right? I hope so.

would be using 
> an ink jet printer that's been on the market for a week or two.

OK, I yeild that point: He'd be using a 4000, not a 4800.

Djon