Homage to Edward Weston

[Round Tuit]

As an exercise in B&W, I tried to emulate Edward Weston's Pepper no 30. It turned out to be more difficult than I had enticipated. Mind you, I don't have a large tin funnel! My pepper is resting on a burgundy piece of leather which is quite shiny. On the other hand, I have powerful editing tools that Weston didn't have. I used a softbox on either side of the pepper. In order to tame the reflections on the pepper and on the leather, I used a circular polarizing filter which only worked on the reflections one side at a time. i ended up combining two shots to eliminate the shiny leather and at the same time reduce the highlights on the pepper so that I could capture the deep shadows. I ended up with this:




The experiment provided a good learning experience and I gained a healthy respect for Edward Weston who did it all in camera.

[Manfred M]

What I find even more impressive is that you found an interesting looking pepper.

When I was looking through our supply of peppers a few year ago (I was thinking of doing something along the lines of what you have done here), they all looked too perfect and uninteresting.

Nicely done (with the image, not just finding an interesting looking pepper).

[Round Tuit]

Thanks Manfred,
It turned out to be an interesting experiment. For the first time in my life, I could actually see a picture of what I was trying to create.

P.S. You won't find interesting peppers in the stores but rather in someone's garden where most of them will be distinctive. This one grew in the garden of my son and daughter in law.