Untitled (Great Western Plaster Mill),

1925, printed 1953

Taken during a visit to Los Angeles, this photograph records a pivotal moment in Weston’s practice, with the artist poised between a Pictorialist style that emphasized using the conventions of painting in making photographs and a Modernist style specifically tailored to the strengths of the camera. The mill proved an ideal subject to manifest this tension. Weston captured the plaster dust that coated the exterior of the building, evoking the soft focus favored by Pictorialists, while also relying on the camera lens to frame the mill’s walls and roof in a Modernist composition, choosing not to mimic the use of linear perspective common to painting. Thus, the theme of the photograph becomes the play of shape and light created by the angles of the building.