As a photographer, peppers are sacred.
They represent an ideal image, an abstract thought. They call us to see beyond
what the subject is, but see what it is to us. To hear what that subject says
to us. Often that line of thinking also brings to light what the subject’s reveals
about us.
Edward Weston is a famous photographer
and known for his beautiful and revolutionary work in black and white
photography of the 20th century. There are many images he is known
for, none stand out in my mind as much as “Pepper No. 30” (pictured below). Another favorite is
his entire work with landscape photography, which is expansive. The intricate technical
aspects aside, the process and creativity is admirable to say the least.
People criticize and scrutinize artists
and Weston wasn't shielded from this. Still isn't There are plenty of images people
pull from this image, some innocent, some not so innocent. On the back of a print of one of his peppers that he gave to
a friend, Weston wrote, "As you like it ‒ but this is just a pepper ‒ nothing else ‒to the impure all
things ‒ are impure."
The beauty of still life, abstract, art in general is you can
see what you’d like to see. You can see what your heart feels. The psychology involved
runs deep and can be enlightening or scary. SO look. Look beyond, through
images and subjects. Don’t just see a family, see the story that family is
living, see the one they could be living, or you could be living.
Weston also reminds of this, “It is a classic, completely
satisfying, a pepper - but more than a pepper; abstract, in that it is
completely outside subject matter. It has no psychological attributes, no human
emotions are aroused: this new pepper takes one beyond the world we know in the
conscious mind. To be sure, much of my work has this quality...but this one,
and in fact all of the new ones, take one into an inner reality, the absolute,
with a clear understanding, a mystic revealment. This is the "significant
presentation" that I mean, the presentation through one's intuitive self,
seeing "through one's eyes, not with them": the visionary."
So see what you’d like.
I was cooking dinner. I saw yumminess.
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