Landscape Workshop with Kim Weston
“I came out to Carmel to explore the range of landscape photography using a 4x5 view camera. Kim began by showing me prints of not only Edward and Brett Weston, but his son Zach, as well. We talked about what makes a good composition, a good negative. We spent a number of days at Point Lobos, Soberanes Point, and Monastery Beach, wrestling with erratic light and wind to get shots as close as aging cypresses and granite monoliths to the vastnesses of the Pacific and its clouds. He built up my confidence as I composed shots on the ground glass, helping me to not only get everything in focus, but to consider the play of contrast, the light and shadows that give a photograph range. On the final day, he taught me to make gelatin silver prints, a task I have since carried home to Kentucky, working frequently in the darkroom I built immediately upon returning. Most of all, what I brought home was a deeper sense of what it means to be not only a photographer, but an artist.”
