Edward Weston
1927–1935: Glendale to Carmel

Weston initially returned to his old studio in Glendale (previously called Tropico). He hastily arranged a dual exhibition at University of California of the photographs that he and Brett had made the year before. The father showed 100 prints and the son showed 20. Brett was only 15 years old at the time.

In February he started a new series of nudes, this time of dancer Bertha Wardell. One of this series, of her kneeling body cut off at the shoulders, is one of Weston's most well-known figure studies. At this same time he met Canadian painter Henrietta Shore, whom he asked to comment on the photos of Wardell. He was surprised by her honest critique: "I wish you would not do so many nudes – you are getting used to them, the subject no longer amazes you ‒ most of these are just nudes."

He asked to look at her work and was intrigued by her large paintings of sea shells. He borrowed several shells from her, thinking he might find some inspiration for a new still life series. Over the next few weeks he explored many different kinds of shell and background combinations – in his log of photographs taken for 1927 he listed fourteen negatives of shells. One of these, simply called Nautilus, 1927" (sometimes called Shell, 1927), became one of his most famous images. Modotti called the image "mystical and erotic," and when she showed it to Rene d'Harnoncourt he said he felt "weak at the knees." Weston is known to have made at least twenty-eight prints of this image, more than he had made of any other shell image.

In September of that year Weston had a major exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. At the opening of the show he met fellow photographer Willard Van Dyke, who later introduced Weston to Ansel Adams.

In May 1928, Weston and Brett made a brief but important trip to the Mojave Desert. It was there that he first explored and photographed landscapes as an art form. He found the stark rock forms and empty spaces to be a visual revelation, and over a long weekend he took twenty-seven photographs. In his journal he declared "these negatives are the most important I have ever done."

Later that year he and Brett moved to San Francisco, where they lived and worked in a small studio owned by Hagemeyer. He made portraits to earn an income, but he longed to get away by himself and get back to his art. In early 1929 he moved to Johan Hagemeyer's cottage in Carmel, and it was there that he finally found the solitude and the inspiration that he was seeking. He placed a sign in studio window that said, "Edward Weston, photographer, Unretouched Portraits, Prints for Collectors."

He started making regular trips to nearby Point Lobos, where he would continue to photograph until the end of his career. It was there that he learned to fine-tune his photographic vision to match the visual space of his view camera, and the images he took there, of kelp, rocks and wind-blown trees, are among his finest. Looking at his work from this period, one biographer wrote:

Weston arranged his compositions so that things happened on the edges; lines almost cross or meet and circular lines just touch the edges tangentially; his compositions were now created exclusively for a space with the proportions of eight by ten. There is no extraneous space nor is there too little.

In early April 1929, Weston met photographer Sonya Noskowiak at a party, and by the end of the month she was living with him. As with many of his other relationships, she became his model, muse, pupil and assistant. They would continue to live together for five years.

Intrigued by the many kinds and shapes of kelp he found on the beaches near Carmel, in 1930 Weston began taking close-ups of vegetables and fruits. He made a variety of photographs of cabbage, kale, onions, bananas, and finally, his most iconic image, peppers. In August of that year Noskowiak brought him several green peppers, and over a four-day period he shot at least thirty different negatives. Of these, Pepper No. 30, is among the all-time masterpieces of photography.

Weston had a series of important one-man exhibitions in 1930–31. The first was at Alma Reed's Delphic Studio Gallery in New York, followed closely by a mounting of the same show at the Denny Watrous Gallery in Carmel. Both received rave reviews, including a two-page article in the New York Times Magazine. These were followed by shows at the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Galerie Jean Naert in Paris.

Although he was succeeding professionally his personal life was very complex. For most of their marriage, Flora was able to take care of their children because of an inheritance from her parents. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 had wiped out most of her savings, and Weston felt increased pressure to help provide more for her and his sons. He described this time as "the most trying economic period of my life."

In 1932, The Art of Edward Weston, the first book devoted exclusively to Weston's work, was published. It was edited by Merle Armitage and dedicated to Alice Rohrer, an admirer and patron of Weston whose $500 donation helped pay for the book to be published.

During the same time a small group of like-minded photographers in the San Francisco area, led by Van Dyke and Ansel Adams, began informally meeting to discuss their common interest and aesthetics. Inspired by Weston's show at the De Young Museum the previous year, they approached the museum with the idea of mounting a group exhibition of their work. They named themselves Group f/64, and in November 1932, an exhibition of 80 of their prints opened at the museum. The show was a critical success.

In 1933 Weston bought a 4 × 5 Graflex camera, which was much smaller and lighter than the large view camera he had used for many years. He began taking close-up nudes of Noskowiak and other models. The smaller camera allowed him to interact more with his models, while at the same time the nudes he took during this period began to resemble some of the contorted root and vegetables he had taken the year before.

In early 1934, "a new and important chapter opened" in Weston's life when he met Charis Wilson at a concert. Even more than with his previous lovers, Weston was immediately captivated by her beauty and her personality. He wrote: "A new love came into my life, a most beautiful one, one which will, I believe, stand the test of time." On April 22 he photographed her nude for the first time, and they entered into an intense relationship. He was still living with Noskowiak at that time, but within two weeks he asked her to move out, declaring that for him other women were "as inevitable as the tides".

Perhaps because of the intensity of his new relationship, he stopped writing in his Daybooks at this same time. Six months later he wrote one final entry, looking back from April 22:
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