Mushroom (section)

Cut open and lit from within the shadows, this humble mushroom loses all sense of scale. Edward Weston aimed his camera at the underside of the fungus and let its gills take center stage, each thin ridge sweeping outward in soft grays and bright whites. The curving fan of lines could pass for the vaulted ceiling of a church or heavy drapery frozen mid-sway. An object most people would toss in a pan without a second glance becomes strange and monumental here.

Among American photographers of the twentieth century, Weston stood out for his belief that ordinary things deserved a serious look. Peppers, seashells, rippling sand dunes, all received the same steady attention he gave this mushroom in 1943. He worked in sharp focus with no softening effects, trusting the subject to speak for itself. Setting the fungus against a deep black backdrop, he cleared away every distraction so the natural rhythm of those gills could hold your eye.

The picture succeeds because Weston never tried to flatter his subject. He kept the mushroom exactly as it was and let the play of light reveal its structure. That plain respect for the thing in front of the lens shaped how countless photographers thought about their own craft in the years that followed.