Photo Feature: Brett Weston

Brett Weston was an American photographer. Born in Los Angeles in 1911, the second son of photographer Edward Weston, he had perhaps the closest artistic relationship with his famous father of all four of the Weston sons. In 1925, Edward removed Brett from school and took him to Mexico, where the thirteen year old became his father’s apprentice. Surrounded by revolutionary artists of the day, such as Tina Modotti, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and influenced as well by the striking contrast of life in Mexico, it was there that Brett first began making photographs with a small Graflex 3 1/4″ x 4 1/4″ camera.

 “What linked Brett with his father most strongly, at least in artistic terms, was their shared allegiance to Modernist style, which for them meant producing crisp, sharply delineated close-ups that emphasized the abstract forms of objects.” Some pictures explicitly recall his father’s pictures.

Brett Weston is clearly one of the greatest American photographic artists. He remained true to his style throughout his career, as a survey of his work after 1945 demonstrates.

Brett’s work was even included in a group formed by his father along with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry Swift, and Willard Van Dyke called the f/64 group. The f/64 practiced ‘straight photography’, producing sharp uncropped prints from large format cameras, which were often contact printed.

“I don’t think of my work in terms of money. Once the work is completed that’s different. I might make a portfolio to sell but I don’t have that thought in mind when I go out to make a photo. I do it just for the love and excitement.”

Brett’s father was quoted as saying…”Brett and I were always seeing the same things to do—we have the same kind of vision.”

Some of his signature images include sand dunes, metropolitan life, abstract themes, nature, “straight photography” and many more.

Recent updates and exhibitions featuring his work include:

• Wichita Falls Museum of Art Exhibition (September 2026): An exhibition celebrating a major donation of 50 gelatin silver prints—all printed by Weston—gifted to the museum’s collection through The Brett Weston Archive.
• UW Art Museum Exhibition (July 2026): A showcase featuring 26 photographs selected from a recent gift of 50 works to the UW Art Museum highlighting his legacy in 20th-century abstraction.
• “Brett Weston: Japan in Focus” Reception (April 2026): Hosted in New York by Julie Maguire and Christian Keesee to highlight Weston’s rare 1970 Japan portfolio, which marked his shift to top-to-bottom compositions and rolled film with a Rollei camera.
• Ongoing Scholarly & Institutional Revival: Museum collections—including the Cleveland Museum of Art and others—continue to spotlight his transition from natural landscapes to stark, high-contrast formal abstraction.

1. http://www.brettwestonarchive.com/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Weston
3. http://www.brettwestonarchive.com/brettweston
4. http://betterphotography.in/perspectives/great-masters/brett-weston/40595/

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Our intent in bringing you these blog posts is to highlight the creative processes and discovery of photography as a medium of art and expression. While we may not have first-hand knowledge of everything we present (it’s hard to), we bring an amalgamation of ideas and content in a succinct fashion to present the community’s body of work, feature great photographers and various techniques. Enjoy !