2009.48.1.5
This is a black and white platinum-palladium print that shows a nude woman sitting in a doorway. The woman has both knees bent and she encircles her legs with her arms. She rests the side of her face on her leg so that the top of her head faces the camera.
Charis [Weston] described how this picture was made: ". . .I sat in the bedroom doorway [to the sunroof] with the room in a shadow behind me. Even then the light was almost overpoweringly bright. When I ducked my head to avoid looking into it, Edward said, "Just keep it that way." He was never happy with the shadow on the right arm, and I was never happy with the crooked hair part and the bobby pins. But when I see the picture unexpectedly, I remember most vividly Edward examining the print with a magnifying glass to decide if the few visible pubic hairs would prevent him from shipping it through the mails" [Charis Weston, "Nudes"].In "Darkroom 2," Cole Weston used this image as an example of his father's printing technique and the materials he used. He went into considerable detail and illustrated the glassine envelope on which Edward wrote specific directions for printing that shadow on Charis's right arm [Amy Conger, "Edward Weston: Photographs," figure 968].
