KIM WESTON: Painted Photographs

Kim Weston is a third-generation member of one of the most important and creative families in photography. He has been a fine art photographer for more than 40 years, specializing in large-format photography. He learned his craft assisting his father Cole in the darkroom, making gallery prints from his grandfather Edward's negatives. Kim also worked many years as an assistant to his uncle Brett, whose bold, abstract photographs rank as some of the finest examples of modern photographic art.

His main body of work consists of silver gelatin prints, which he prints in 8×10, 11×14, and 16×20 enlargements. Kim also prints in platinum, and while learning the process he ended up with many images that he felt had not yet expressed his vision. Growing up in the world of the "perfect print," he started going into his studio in the evenings and applying colors to his prints. He felt a sort of freedom to color, scratch, and apply paints to the surface of the print. The end result exemplifies Kim's inherent nature of seeing and working in color, and since then he has gone on to alter the silver gelatin surface with oil paints.

The photographic process is a conceptual part of my life. The process of camera, vision, and execution either captures in its whole a vision or a feeling—hopefully interpreted by the viewer. The finished photograph must be an immaculate rendition of the vision, and the surface is of paramount importance, which is something I have done well for 40-plus years. My painted photographs have given me a release from surface importance and visual certainty. I can take my image to another dimension which, as I think about it, was my original direction and interpretation of the subject to begin with.