"Ritorto"

gelatin silver print

Kim Weston learned the photographer's trade when he assisted his father Cole Weston in the darkroom making gallery prints from his grandfather Edward Weston's original negatives. Kim also worked for many years as an assistant to his uncle Brett Weston.
Unlike his ancestors, Kim Weston almost exclusively photographs nudes in the studio. His photographs are created in staged worlds. "My father (Cole Weston) thought it was too cerebral, and that I shouldn’t arrange stuff. I argued with him about that. What are Edward’s most famous images? The peppers, the shells, all the nudes are arranged. They are perfectly legitimate photographic subjects. So are landscapes, in black and white or in color. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re fulfilling that inner need, and for me the need is more the process than the finished product. My photographs are stories of the process."
And indeed, there is a certain formal connection between this back nude and Edward Weston's peppers. The title “Ritorto” refers to the Italian word for crooked and curved.
(Christoph Fuchs)

Anmerkungen

1
Kim Weston in an interview with Jim Kasson in August 2022, https://www.photography.org/interview-kim-weston (10.1.2024)