Edward Weston in WW2

I've just been reading Todd Webb's 40 year journal, "Looking Back."

It starts in 1946 when he came back from WW2, and is living in New

York. Again and again he mentions being unable to get film. If

things were that tough post-war 1946 in NYC, they must have been

impossible during the war in the little country town of Carmel. I

wonder if Weston's miniscule output after the Leaves of Grass trip

was largely a result of his inability to get film, rather than his

illness and the closure of Point Lobos?

Interesting question. We should be able to find out.

It was the Parkinson's. Why would everyone say it was Parkinson's if it was only film

shortage? Having watched my dad waste away over six or seven years from

Parkinson's , I will assure you that it is not something you use as an excuse for

something else.

One good source for understanding this period in Weston's life is the book "Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston." Written in 1998 by Charis Wilson, his second wife, the book rounds out our view of Weston the man. It is a good read.

 

I am making a giant leap here, but his relationship with Charis was coming un-glued during the war period and this could have been one more problem contributing to his reduced productivity.

In Ansel's Autobiography pp208, he mentions getting a postcard from Edward. "Dear Ansel, Charis and I are no longer one". That was in 1945. On 17, November of that same year, another card: "Dear Ansel, Thanks for writing. And I will be here for at least a while. You will never see Charis and Edward together on Wildcat Hill. Divorce. -E-" They exchange more writing and the sense I make of it was that Weston was deeply affected by the split. How can that not influence one's work in some way or another?

 

Just another angle.

I can't see as how there would be a film shortage in the little village of Carmel. Thats Baja San Francisco you're referring to! If the yellow stuff was in short supply, he'd certainly have had plenty of surplus aerial film available cheap. Morely Baer, Peter Gowland, and several other post-war LF Photographers certainly used the stuff with good results. Since E.W. was a master of making do with what he could afford, I'd tend to believe that something other than film availability was an issue.--------Cheers!

Weston kept shooting during WWII though it appears it was closer to home. From the books it appears he did some nice satirical images as his commentary on the goings on. Apparently he did a bit more nearby due, at least in part, to the travel restrictions & fuel shortages.

I don't think there was any severe shortage of film during that time. There seems to plenty of family snapshots from that era, maybe more than from previous times. Certainly military needs had priority but with the huge increase in film production necessary to meet those needs, the civilian market probably wasn't too affected. Personal travel was curtailed from gasoline and tire rationing. Also, the speed limits were reduced to save gasoline. Commercial photographers in areas where there were large military installations typically made a lot of money during that period.

 

I know Gowland, Adams, and Gordon Parks had government contracts during the war. Weston doesn't appear to have done any of that work that I can recall, but I'm not the expert here.

Re-reading your post again Bill, post-war film availability may certainly have been a problem. After the war ended and the large production contracts terminated, companies typically found themselves with too much capacity and too much surplus government-contract stuff. So typically, they had to suck it in tight for a while until things got back to normal.

 

Supposedly there's an island in the South Pacific where the Army buried 3000-some Graphic cameras. Legend says the Folmer Graphic company made a deal with the Gov. to keep the cameras off the surplus market, thus not having their post-war market undercut. Maybe Kodak got their surplus film thrown into the same pit.

Maybe not, but I can remember that it was damn near impossible to get 616 roll film for our family Kodak during the war.

Cole Weston reported that his dad "loved" Agfa Isopan film. Was Agfa film made by Ansco in those days? (the companies were connected in some ways back then.) Certainly film made in Germany would have been impossible to get in the USA in the forties. But my reading of the histories suggests that film supply wasn't a problem. EW would have stocked up if there was going to be a shortage- by all accounts film was as important to him as food, if not more so. Interesting, thought-provoking thread!

I don't know of any film shortage during and immediately after WWII. There are plenty of photographs from those years in my grandparents' family albums. There was, however, a severe gas shortage. Gas was rationed I believe and in any event was in such short supply that people saved driving for essentials like work, the grocery store, etc. There probably was more than one reason why his output diminished but the inability to make photography trips as he had done in the past surely was at leat one contributing factor.

If film was in short supply would you take pictures of cats? Me either.