I was up too late last night and my eyes started to get bleary as I worked. 
“I should go to bed, there’s no reason for me to be awake.”
As I lay there just about to doze, the storm kicked up again. I normally love the sound of thunderstorms as I sleep and this time it was no different. My wife sleeps next to me and breathes heavy as she normally does, oblivious to the storm. The dog, in normal thunderstorm fashion, awakes from his slumber and slides under the bed for his sanctuary from the storm.
That first crack of thunder woke me back up; I was excited for one of the first storms of Spring. Flashes of lightening kept showing me things on my walls and casting shadows across the room. Unfortunately, I was now wide awake. I thought about getting up and finishing what I was working on but decided to just enjoy the sounds from outside. The winter months had loosened the downspout outside my window and had created a rhythmic sound as the rain falling on the roof reached it’s entry. Thunderstorms are great.
Earlier that day I had been downtown. An earlier storm was passing through at that point as well, though it lacked the punch of tonight’s thunder and lightening. It was a quiet day, not many people were out. We have reached that time of year in West Michigan where people are excited to get back outside after the winter months but a little rain will completely desert an area making it feel like a ghost town.
While waiting for a meeting with a fellow creative friend, I let time pass sitting in the members lounge of the GRAM. I was the only one there, it was nice. Earlier while there, I was studying a biography of Edward Weston. He was a complicated man but it was really all very simple. I have enjoyed his works on peppers in the past and have even half-assedly attempted to create something similar. The book had a few other images of his that I had not seen, one of which was a leaf off a head of cabbage; it was beautiful. Who would have thought? Prior to his pepper works, Weston was known for his works on nudes. When his images of peppers began to appear, they cast an almost sensual feel to them, almost by association. He presented the curves and shadows of a pepper the same way someone would present a nude image. I’ve always admired when someone can create an internal feeling within the viewer while looking at something as simple as a bell pepper. The ability to create mood or even a reaction from the viewer, I feel, is what all photographers stride for; to present something that we see everyday and show it in a way that we never thought of. It makes one slow down and really value what we have all around us. Weston’s works were spot on with this. Be it a pepper, a sand dune, or the curves and folds of a woman’s body, Weston nailed it every time.
There was a great quote in the book from him. Where I agree 100% with it, I’ll admit that it is not often the case when I am behind the lens. As often as I can, when I bring my eye to the viewfinder, I know what I want it to be. But too often I find myself thinking I know what 75% of the image will be like and the remainder will come to me in a burst of inspiration later. Too often, when working on items for myself, I think “find it, it’s in there.” Weston, did not:
“One must prevision and feel, before exposure, the finished print – complete in all values, in every detail – when focusing upon the camera ground glass. Then the shutter’s release fixes for all time this image, this conception, never to be changed by afterthought, by subsequent manipulation.” E.W.
Pypeline.