Weston Photography | Focusing In - My Little Grey Home in the West, 1943

My Little Grey Home in the West - 1943

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My Little Grey Home in the West, 1943 Photograph by Edward Weston | Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

This photograph was taken during a time that highlights Edwards frustration with the closing of Point Lobos due to World War II. With his photographic playground off limits, Weston started setting up scenes on Wildcat Hill. To many, this new direction was very surprising, as it was nothing like his usual style. 

“Perhaps because I felt that you were upset-by the war-by having Lobos closed, and so on...It seemed strange to us [Nancy and Sybil Anikeef] to find you of all people carefully arranging surrealist set-ups”

— Nancy Newhall via Edward Weston: Photographs by Amy Conger

Civilian Defense, 1942 Photograph by Edward Weston | Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

Springtime 1943, 1943 Photograph by Edward Weston | Collection Center for Creative Photography © 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

The above two images were also taken around the same time on Wildcat Hill. You can see Edward's playful arrangement of props in each photograph.

Charis had a fond recollection of the Little Grey Home in the West photograph:

“There was a nude taken in which I stand on the steps of my workroom eating an apple and holding an “Edward Weston” sign as my brother looks out the window, playing his recorder. A great deal of our mutual life was commemorated in that picture: the sign was from Edward’s Carmel studio; the stone bird with raised wings in one corner was carved by a stone-cutter we met on the Whitman trip; a piled-up rock wall attested to my pleasure in building such walls wherever an earth bank needed holding. Along with such specific mementos, the photograph also contained a general tapestry of Edward’s and my territory at Wildcat Hill - blooming geraniums, manzanita, the weathered boards of my workroom, and the grey pines on the steep hill behind. ”

— Charis Wilson via Edward Weston: Photographs by Amy Conger

The photograph is taken behind the main house on Wildcat Hill at the south end of "Bodie House" which was at one time Charis' writing studio. It is currently used as a photography location during our Wildcat Studio Nude Workshops!