Years before I picked up a camera, I found this book in my father’s office. It was nestled between other photography books, technical manuals, monographs, and rock climbing guides. The rusted burnt sienna color of the word DUNE, the chiseled feet and of each letter, the pointed ends, I could see there was care in the layout and make of this book. I had to get into it.
Edward and Brett Weston. Father and Son. Captain and First mate. I was led to photography by my father’s influence, much as Brett was let to the camera by his father. And while I don’t claim to be Brett Weston, and my father never claimed to be Edward Weston, their reverence for the natural world, a dramatic face, the human form, and our aging relationship to the built environment without a doubt paved a path my father and I have both walked.
The images in DUNE are striking, graphic, powerful depictions of landscapes grander than the sum of their parts, the human female body hurled across the sand in perfect silver tonality and dramatic the portraits of the photographers themselves. All of this sucks you into a romantic and weathered world of a simpler time.
But for me, the core power of this book is not the shared love of photography and subject these photographers convey, but the language these two creative individuals express. These men, father and son, could communicate all that needed to be said in their letters.
Brett!
Hot Dogs - Hot Soup! -
When are you coming
to Mexico? … You golden
Haired - blued eyed -
Son of a sea-pirate!
Dad-
Dear Dad,
Dad do you know what
You are???? You are a
Pigeon toed knock kneed
Gray haired monkey!!!!!!
And I mean it.
B.
I love these letters, this book, these men, their photographs because I see myself and my father. I see our language and how we communicated that so often went the way of the pirate.
