Brett Weston DVD

kenmeyersphoto

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I recently came across a DVD about Brett Weston that Art Wright did. It is great. It shows him out photographing in the field, working in the darkroom etc... It also includes some 800 photographs from the Brett Weston archives at the end of the DVD. For any Brett Weston fan, this is a must have.

http://www.brettwestonphotographer.com/
 

MenacingTourist

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This will increase my Photographer DVD collection to exactly 2. Hmmm...I wonder if there are other dvd's to add to the collection? I'm not sure Weston gets along with Avedon and I might have to seperate them.
 

nze

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This DVd is one of my favorite. the film is well done showing all step of the creation. I also have the paul strand dvd but I find it nor as good as the brett one .
the brett DVD is really great
 

Jimmy Peguet

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Hi Christian,

I am almost completely ignorant as regards DVD : are US disks readable on our french machines ?

Jimmy
 

John_Brewer

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Jimmy, it says on the website that it is region free so you will be able to play it on you DVD player.

John
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Sounds great. I just ordered it.
 

laz

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I am curious. There seems to be a preponderance of Brett Weston fans here at APUG. Besides the obvious (great photographer!) is there another reason for this like a bunch of his students are APUGers?
 

jovo

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laz said:
I am curious. There seems to be a preponderance of Brett Weston fans here at APUG. Besides the obvious (great photographer!) is there another reason for this like a bunch of his students are APUGers?
Click to expand...


I can't speak for others, but for me Brett Weston is a source of continuous discovery. Compared to Edward's work, there are far fewer collections of Brett's photographs available at the moment (though Lodima will soon be changing that) and every time I encounter stuff I haven't seen, I'm immensely impressed and eager to see more. At the AIPAD show, both last year and the year before, I got to pick up and really examine some of his prints and they are simply stunning. So...I'll spring for the DVD and be thrilled when I get to see it.
 

Bill Hahn

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More photographer DVD's, videos

For Menacing Tourist:

"Paul Strand: Under the Darkcloth" DVD and video
"W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult" DVD and video
"Walker Evans' America" apparently video only
"David Plowden: Light and Shadow" DVD and video
"American Masters: Ansel Adams" DVD
"Remembering Edward Weston" video, don't know if it's available on DVD
(Brief footage of Cole, Brett and Charis Wilson)

"Brilliant Fever" video made in Pittsburgh by Kenneth Love about W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh project.

"The Adventure of Photography" - 2 DVD set, I believe originally done on French TV. Lots of historical nuggets, and some errors.

"90 degrees South" - DVD made of Herbert Ponting's presentation of his still and moving (!) pictures from the 1911 Scott expedition to Antartica.

"Dorothea Lange: A Visual Life" - apparently video only

....and I'm sure there are plenty of others. Of these, my favorites are "A Visual Life" and "Photography Made Difficult"....
 

lee

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Isnt there a Brett Weston Collection in Okc, Oklahoma?

I had a friend that used to work there and I think MAS might know about it.

lee\c
 

matt miller

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I think you're right Lee. On the brettwestonphotographer.com website, where you can order the DVD, they mention that the 892 digitized images are "used with permission of The Brett Weston Archive in Oklahoma City".
 

skillian

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Brett's archives were purchased from his daughter by a foundation. They oversee licensing or use of his images, donate his work to museums, help writers or institutions that are researching Brett's work, etc... That's the Brett Weston Archive referred to in the previous post. The DVD in question is simply awesome - the best portrait done of a working photographer that I've ever seen.

Don't know why so many BW fans are on APUG - never noticed, actually. However, he has certainly been the biggest influence on my own work. Unfortunately, too many people seem to dismiss him as only Edward's son when he was really his contemporary and a strong influence on his father (as EW says himself in the Daybooks). IMO not enough has been written about Brett. He wrote so very little about himself, preferring to let his photographs speak for themsleves. Somebody was working on a BW biography which I'd love to see published someday.
 

jmdavis

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laz said:
I am curious. There seems to be a preponderance of Brett Weston fans here at APUG. Besides the obvious (great photographer!) is there another reason for this like a bunch of his students are APUGers?
Click to expand...


Laz,

For me, its his extraordinary continuum of work. One of the things that he talks about in the DVD is that he was shooting the same sort of things then 1970-71 as he was when he first started, but that his "Vision" had changed. He turned 60 in 1971 and started shooting in 1925. When you look at his work, this is relatively easy to see, from Mexican roof tops, to the wing of a Ford Trimotor, to the drive wheels of a locomotive, the abstract nature of the subjects is there as much as cracked plaster or burnt tile or seaweed.

He went through his periods of normal and high contrast based on his Vision. I'm sure that there are other more subtle changes as well.

For me the best part of the DVD was watching Weston work. The darkroom scenes, the mounting methods, the spotting of negatives and prints, there are details in there that are valuable. I was also interested in the simplicity of his methods. I believe that he talks about keeping them simple at some point in the DVD.

Mike Davis
 

MenacingTourist

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Thanks Bill!
 

abeku

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APUG is an expensive but rewarding place to spend time at. $30 less in my wallet (thanks Paypal).
 

abeku

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...and Stieglitz at PBS
 

JHannon

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lee said:
Isnt there a Brett Weston Collection in Okc, Oklahoma?

I had a friend that used to work there and I think MAS might know about it.

lee\c
Click to expand...

I was in Oklahoma for two weeks on business. Just got off the plane. I was pretty much trapped at a training session for the USPS. No time for cameras or visiting museums. Maybe next time I will be able to see it. Thanks for the information.

--John
 

doughowk

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The wealth of images on the DVD alone is worth the price. The video portion I wish had less just driving around; but maybe that was intended in order to show his methods of subject matter selection. Another good video is that of his father filmed by Willard Van Dyke in 1948 for USIA.
 

Wayne

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I'm have to disagree to the last comment. I found Van Dykes "The Photographer" to be very disappointing, especially since I paid $100 for it from the NTIS NAC before someone started selling home copies of it for $20. Edward doesnt even utter a word, its more of a cold war propaganda film than an Edward Weston film. IMHO, of course. Even at $20 I would have been disapointed. I would recommend "remembering Edward Weston" over that one.
 
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