Far From Home: Photography, Travel and Inspiration January 22, 2007

Throughout the 20th century, photographers traveled far from home to experience other cultures, refresh their eyes, and create new work. Often, the photographs taken on these sojourns have had a critical and lasting impact on their careers. Edward Weston's stay in Mexico in the mid-1920s, for example, catapulted him from a more traditional, naturalistic style into full-fledged Modernism. As he wrote in his daybook shortly after arriving, "Life here is intense and dramatic, I do not need to photograph premeditated postures, and there are sunlit walls of fascinating surface textures, and there are clouds!" His contact with revolutionary artists, exposure to native Mexican art forms, and distance from middle-class American norms freed Weston to find a new vocabulary for his photography.