The Weston Challenge

The Weston Challenge (link to Weston website for those who need to know the real Pepper - Edward Weston — Edward Weston & Cole Weston Family Website), above is an adobe creation.
Seeing Form Through Light
The Weston Challenge invites each photographer to choose a single fruit or vegetable and render it in black and white — not as a still life, but as a study in sculpted light. Inspired by Edward Weston’s iconic Pepper No. 30, this exercise asks you to move beyond the object itself and into the deeper territory of form, tone, and meaning.
Weston didn’t merely photograph a pepper.
He carved with photons.
Your task is to do the same.

https://us05web.zoom.us/meeting/85458064685?meetingMasterEventId=_hR_9BNiQ0KUR5DlotKEtg&ampDeviceId=2712ea4c-f62b-475d-b6f9-743155870b1c&ampSessionId=1769654350037&ampDeviceId=2712ea4c-f62b-475d-b6f9-743155870b1c&ampSessionId=1769654350037

***

🌑 1. The Subject: Ordinary, Yet Infinite
Select any fruit or vegetable. The humbler the better.
A pepper, an onion, a pear, a cabbage — each contains hidden architecture waiting to be revealed.
The challenge is not to find an interesting object.
The challenge is to make it interesting through the way you see.

***

🌗 2. The Medium: Black and White
Stripping away color forces attention to:

• contour
• volume
• transitions of tone
• the emotional temperature of light

Black and white is not a limitation.
It is a clarifying lens.

***

🌕 3. The Goal: Sculpt With Light
Weston’s peppers are remembered not for what they are, but for how they feel.
Your image should demonstrate:

• a full tonal range, from deep shadow to luminous highlight
• intentional shaping of form through directional light
• a sense of gesture or personality in the object
• a visual tension between abstraction and recognition

This is not a documentation exercise.
It is an act of interpretation.

***

🔍 4. The Deeper Question: What Does Your Object Mean?
Every object carries metaphor if you let it speak:

• A cabbage may become a cathedral.
• A pear may feel like a portrait.
• A carrot may suggest movement or vulnerability.
• A mushroom may evoke mystery or solitude.

Your job is to reveal the inner life of the form — the same way Weston revealed the sensual, almost human presence inside a pepper.

***

🎯 5. The Deliverable
Produce a single black‑and‑white image that:

• uses light as a sculptural tool
• demonstrates mastery of tonal range
• elevates an everyday object into something expressive
• stands up to critique and defense in the style of Weston

This is a challenge of patience, perception, and craft.
It rewards those who slow down and truly see.

How To Submit Your Weston Challenge Image
Select the image that is what you feel is your most artistic image of one fruit or vegetable. You will be given time to explain your image in relationship to fine art photographic images. One image per person. Meetup no longer allows more than one Album in the Standard Meetup. Email your jpg to me. Please use the following format for your image: Weston-Your Name. Remember one image only. Send Your Image to (copy and paste this in your email): jeffleed7@gmail.com.