In Photography, texture refers to the visual quality of the surface of an object. This can be things like the variances in shapes, tone and colour depth. Texture can bring life and vibrance to images which would otherwise look flat and dull.

Edward Weston

Edward Weston is a photographer who is often named as “one of the most innovative and influential American photographers”. He is best known for his Sharply Focused Photos of natural forms, landscapes and nudes. His mother died when was only 5 years old and was then raised by sister Mary who was nine years older than him. After a few years his father remarried but neither Weston or his sister got along with their new stepmother and step brother. Mary got married in 1897 and left home which results into Edward Weston being left on his own due to his father primarily focusing on his new wife and stepson which resulted into him dropping school and isolating himself in his room. For his 16th birthday his father purchased him a Camera and after going on holiday in the Midwest his interest in photography grew which led into him purchasing a better camera. In 1930 he decided to experiment taking photographs of different subjects as at the time he was mostly focused on taking Landscapes and nude photos. He took photos of Cabbage, Kale, Bananas, onions and in August of that same year photographer Noskowiak brought him seven green peppers which ended up into him creating one of his most famous piece named Pepper No. 30 which was taken of a green pepper in rich black and white tones. This photo was one of the best-known photos taken by Edward Weston. Another image he took which interests me is cabbage leaf taken in 1931 which was taken when experimenting taking photographs with different types of vegetables.

Edward Weston will be my inspiration for my textural photos as I really like the style of how his images are taken and the subjects in them. For example with the Cabbage we can see the veins of the leaves clearly along with the grooves and shape of them.

My Photos

My Six Personal Favourites:

I chose these images as I feel that the detail of the fruit and vegetables can be seen clearly which is important to me as it follows the same idea Edward Weston uses in his images like for example his image ‘cabbage leaf’ where you are able to view the grooves of the cabbages leaf in detail. So with these images it should match up close to his style especially when edited as I will be able to try get those details in the images to pop out more and be more obvious. I have used a large aperture in order to have a shallow depth of field which allows the cabbage and orange to be the only thing in focus which is needed for my type of photography style.

My Six Personal Favourites Edited:

These are the images after they have been edited and with the images edited they are looking much better. You can see the details pop out more as the black and white colour scheme brings our attention more to the small details of the images. For instance with the orange picture on the bottom left the wrinkles in the orange skin are more visible and easier to look at compared to the same image in colour. The use of a high aperture also helped to keep the subjects in focus which is needed in order to capture all the small details in the photo.