#1 Edward Weston-Portrait

What I like Edward Weston’s portrait is that he always use simple lighting to create powerful images. In here, he only use one light in 45 degree angle above the man. The light softly spread from the top and fall into the dark on the edge. To emphasize this man’s facial expression, as we can feel his angry, or was thinking about something.

#1 Wan Yu-portrait

In here, I also tried to use one light with 45 degree angle from the top to light my model’s face. Also, the facial expression is very important especially when I take such a close-up heed shot. I asked my friend closed his eye, and trying to think nothing. I want him to be comfortable in front of my camera. Finally, I got the peaceful moment and took a shot.

#2 Edward Weston-Portrait

In 1923 Weston moved to Mexico City where he opened a studio, and he made important portraits and nude studies over several years. At same time, he also took pictures on the streets. In this photograph, he captured the characteristic of Mexico city. People are friendly, the building is full of paintings under the hight contrast sun light.

#2 Wan Yu-Portrait

Before doing this photo-blog, actually I didn’t know that Edward Weston had been living in Mexico. He even opened a studio for several years. I was surprised that many of his Mexico photographs have many similarities with my. I also been to Mexico once time, and I photographed a lot of streets scenes over there. In this picture, I was walking through the tiny streets before sunset. And I saw this family passing by me. They seems just finish having dinner together and was taking a little walk under the dim light. In this time, most of people are still working in the Asia or Western countries. We hardly to see or to feel simple happiness in our daily life just like them.

#3 Edward Weston- Portrait

The relationship between big city and individual person. This man looks very confident even though he was surrounding by those buildings and chimneys which are much taller than him. I assume he is a very successful man because from his appearance, he was wearing straight suit and nice leather shoes. Most importantly, he stand on the edge of building comfortably. From this picture, I can tell this man doesn’t afraid of taking any risk at all.

#3 Wan Yu- Portrait

I took this picture of my friend two years ago. In that time, both of us just arrived New York for several months. We have our own dream to persuade and have to achieve it in this big city. When she visited my apartment in lower east side, I invited her to the roof take a look of the downtown manhattan view. When people standing on the roof, there are only two reactions. They will try to look at the view as far as they can, and think about something deeply in their mind. I didn’t want to bother her thinking, I just took a picture.

#4 Edward Weston- Portrait

This lady is a sculptor, she was wearing her working suit and her old, comfortable sneaker standing in front of her studio. In here, Edward Weston captured a real spirit of an artist. Her big hand just like men, protect her and support her. There is no genius of artist, only hard working artist.

#4 Wan Yu- Portrait

I took this picture in Mexico, this old lady reminds me Edward Weston’s portrait. Before I asked her permission to let me take a picture, she already looked at me straight to the eye through my camera. She was sitting in front of a historical church with her bicycle trying to sell some small souvenirs to tourists. But she’s not helpless, she looked at me with pure curiosity. I could feel her hoarse voice was speaking to me through the silence:” What are you doing here kid?”

#5 Edward Weston- Walls

Even a ruined building has it’s own beauty. In here, Edward Weston used broken walls and shadows to create three dimensional space. Also, he used very small aperture to bring in many details behind the buildings.

#5 Wan Yu-Walls

In this picture, I also used the broken window framing, trying to create more space behind the window.I also used small aperture to catch the textures on the walls and small trees outside the building.