Nudes - Foto de Edward Weston

Edward Weston was born in 1886 in Highland Park, Illinois. When he was sixteen years old his father gave him a Kodak Bulls-Eye #2 camera and he began to photograph at his aunt’s farm and in Chicago parks. In 1903 Weston first had his photographs exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute. Soon after the San Francisco earthquake and fire on April 19, 1906, Weston came to California to work as a surveyor for San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. For a short while Weston returned to Chicago and attended the Illinois College of Photography, but came back to California to live in 1908 where he became a founding member of the Camera Pictorialists of Los Angeles. He married Flora Chandler in 1909 and they soon gave birth to two sons: Edward Chandler Weston, in 1910 and Theodore Brett Weston in 1911. Weston had his own portrait studio in Tropico, California and also began to have articles published in magazines such as American Photography, Photo Era and Photo-Miniature where his article entitled “Weston’s Methods” on unconventional portraiture appeared in September, 1917. Weston’s third son, Laurence Neil Weston, was born in 1916 and his fourth, Cole Weston, in 1919. Soon after Weston met Tina Modotti which marked the starting point of their long relationship, photographic collaborations in Mexico and later much publicized love affair. Modotti’s husband, a political radical in Mexico, died in 1922. That same year Weston traveled to Ohio to visit his sister and there took photographs of the Armco Steel Plant. From Ohio he went to New York and met Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler and Georgia O’Keefe. At this time Weston renounced Pictorialism and began a period of transition, self-analysis and self-discipline while making voyages to Mexico, often with Modotti and one of his sons. Some of the photographs that he and Modotti made in Mexico were published in Anita Brenner’s book Idols Behind Altars. Weston began photographing shells, vegetables and nudes in 1927. Weston kept very detailed journals or “Day Books” of his daily activities, thoughts, ideas and conversations. His first publication of these writings “From My Day Book” appeared in 1928 - others were published after his death. Two years later he had his first New York exhibit at Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios Gallery and later exhibited at Harvard Society of Contemporary Arts with Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Sheeler, Stieglitz, Modotti and others. Weston was a Charter member of the “Group f/64″ that was started in 1932 and included Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Consuelo Kanaga and others. They chose this optical term because they habitually set their lenses to that aperture to secure maximum image sharpness of both foreground and distance. Weston went even further toward photographic purity in 1934 when he resolved to make only unretouched portraits. Even though several large exhibitions followed, he was still of modest means and in 1935 initiated the “Edward Weston Print of the Month Club” offering photographs at $10 each. In 1937 he was the first photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship taking his assistant Charis Wilson along on his travels whom he married the next year. In 1940 the book California and the West was published with text by Charis and photographs by Edward. The same year he participated in the U.S. Camera Yosemite Photographic Forum with Ansel Adams and Dorthea Lange. In 1941 he was commissioned by Limited Editions Club to illustrate a new edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Weston started experiencing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in 1946 and in 1948 made his last photographs at Point Lobos. In 1952 his Fiftieth Anniversary Portfolio was published with his images printed by Brett. In 1955 Weston selected several of what he called “Project Prints” and began having Brett, Cole and Dody Warren print them under his supervision. Lou Stoumen released his film The Naked Eye in 1956 of which he used several of Weston’s print as well as footage of Weston himself. Edward Weston died at home on January 1, 1958.

Edward Weston (Highland Park, Illinois, 24 de março de 1886 — Widcat Hill, 1 de janeiro de 1958) foi um dos fotógrafos estadunidenses mais importantes do século XX.

Aos 16 anos ganhou sua primeira máquina fotográfica e fez suas primeiras fotos, demonstrando um grande talento em sua infante prática no campo da fotografia artística. Com 20 anos já havia publicado seus trabalhos.

Em 1922, Weston fotografou seu filho Neil nu. Apesar de não ser exatamente um trabalho do estúdio, a imagem foi aceita como uma clássica escultura em fotografia.

Viajou ao México em 1923, acompanhado de sua companheira Tina Modotti, quando esta ficou viúva, e de um dos seus quatro filhos, Chandler, e lá permaneceram por três anos. Com a ajuda de Modotti, realizou um trabalho fotográfico de mais de 200 obras para o livro Ídolos por trás dos altares, de Anita Brenner.

Retrato de Tina Modotti, por Edward Weston (1923).

Em 1926 voltou para a Califórnia. Esse período de 1296 a 1930 significou para Weston um dos mais significantes de sua carreira, realizando seus trabalhos mais representativos.

Visitou o Deserto de Mojave em 1928, onde se deparou pela primeira vez com a paisagem. O deserto o impressionou, e como resultado, abriu portas para novos caminhos criativos.

A partir de 1929, iniciou sua célebre série de arte abstrata. Realizou sua primeira exposição individual em Nova Iorque no ano de 1930. Dois anos depois, publicou seu primeiro livros de fotografias, The Art of Edward Weston (A arte de Edward Weston).

Em 1935 se estabeleceu em Santa Mônica, onde encontrou lugares de grande inspiração, como nas dunas da Baía de Oceano. Nos últimos anos de sua vida, sua obra se fez mais sutil e diversa, porém, sem a força dos trabalhos anteriores. Em 1946 se divorciou de sua segunda esposa, Charis, e lhe apareceram os primeiros sintomas da síndrome de Parkinson.

Em 1947 teve seu primeiro contato com a fotografia em cores, mas não sem certas reticências. (wikipedia)

O fotógrafo Edward Weston (1886-1958) é considerado um pioneiro e um dos representantes mais sólidos da “fotografia direta” americana. Gostava de fazer experiências, de procurar motivos abstratos, angulos de observação e condições de iluminação. Fotografou fragmentos de rostos e nus e começou a usar técnicas de foco variável. Para Weston, as coisas do dia-a-dia transformavam-se em esculturas orgânicas, cujas formas eram ao mesmo tempo expressão e justificativa da vida que abrigavam, uma qualidade quase tátil.(Blog Um postal para um amigo).

Brazil’s new status wins admirers

By Ruth Sullivan - Financial Times

Institutional investors are likely to take a fresh look at Brazil following ratings upgrades by two big agencies in the past two months. PDF

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have both upgraded Brazil’s long-term sovereign debt to investment status, which means the country is now considered a safe investment destination unlikely to default on its debts.

It has only gained the lowest rung of the investment grade ladder, a long way from the triple A status of developed economies such as the US, Britain or Germany. But the change will nonetheless make it more attractive to a broader range of international investors such as big US pension funds, which are constrained from investing in countries that have not had their capacity to repay debt positively assessed, say fund managers.

Just six years ago the country was widely seen as being on the brink of bankruptcy and many investors would have found it impossible to see Brazil as an investment-grade country.

“The upgrade opens Brazil to a wider investor audience. A lot of funds will only move into a country when it has investment grade rating,” says Julian Thompson, head of emerging market equities at Threadneedle.

Brazil equity funds have just seen their sixth consecutive week of inflows, totalling $1.4bn (£716m, €901m), compared with net outflows of about $632m before that period, according to Boston-based Emerging Portfolio Fund Research, which tracks global fund flows.

“Investors have been attracted to Brazil based on better than expected recent economic growth and the government’s past commitment to responsible fiscal policies that led to fiscal surpluses and mounting foreign exchange reserves,” says Brad Durham, managing director of EPFR.

The strong flows into Brazil’s equity funds come as emerging markets funds in general have suffered severe outflows. The MSCI Brazil index is up almost 20 per cent since the beginning of January, while the MSCI Emerging Markets index is down more than 3 per cent.

Fund managers see the investment grade more as a seal of approval than dramatically changing fundamentals. “When Mexico gained its first investment grade rating in 2000, North American investors gradually began to add Mexican equities to their portfolio,” says Urban Larson, fund manager of F&C’s Latin American fund. He expects a similar pattern to emerge with Brazil.

Although Brazil is the last of the Bric countries (the others being Russia, India and China) to gain investment grade status, many Latin America and Bric fund managers are overweight in the country’s stocks.

“We’ve been fans of Brazil for a long time . . . and expect to maintain an overweight position. Any increase [in weighting] will depend on new companies coming to market,” Mr Thompson says.

Investor appetite has traditionally focused on commodities in a country with significant natural resources, but domestic stocks are beginning to gain some attention as domestic spending and consumption grows. “Brazil is the place where we see the most exciting opportunities,” says Stefan Herz, Latin American fund manager at Charlemagne Capital, an emerging market fund specialist.

“There have been so many initial public offerings in Brazil in the past few years and the emergence of new sectors.”

The information technology, real estate and healthcare sectors have also made a debut. “It is the only Latin American country where this has happened.”

Brazil makes up more than 67 per cent of the weighting of Charlemagne’s Magna Latin America fund.

Nicholas Morse, Schroders Latin America fund manager, is also positive on Brazil. Schroders’ $1.9bn Luxembourg-listed Latin America fund counts Brazil as the “largest overweight country in the portfolio”. The company’s $14.5bn Bric fund is also overweight in Brazilian equities .

On a short term outlook, Mr Morse says equity and fixed income markets have already discounted Brazil’s investment upgrade. But from a longer term perspective, “the status is good for foreign direct investment, especially for sectors [such as] infrastructure”.

At Threadneedle, where 22 per cent of the Global Equity Markets fund is in Brazil, compared with 18 per cent in Russia, 11 per cent in China and just 4 per cent in India, Mr Thompson also sees the attraction of investing in property. “The demand for middle income residential property is strong and remains relatively good value.”

He emphasises the importance of good stock-picking. “Once an investment grade rating has happened, the country [debt] risk has been reduced so there is not so much improvement to come. Then it is more about stock-picking.”

In the financial sector, the fund is looking outside banks, which are growing their loan books strongly but not their earnings, and at companies such as Redecard, a credit card transaction processor.

Another outcome of the rating change is that investor confidence will be boosted enough to encourage investors to look beyond traditional commodities and move into domestic stocks, says Mr Larson of F&C.

F&C’s Latin American Equity fund has been adding Brazilian domestic companies to its portfolio with AmBev, the brewery, which Mr Larson is expecting to show strong volume growth this year. The fund has also added Unibanco to its bank holding and invested in the stocks of All, a railway company, and Localixa, an auto rental company.

But some concerns still remain in the investment community, particularly the spectre of rising inflation and the question of whether current strong commodity prices can be sustained.