Kim Weston Biography
“No matter how fast I could do it with the digital camera I don’t think I would get the same thing out of it. The passion I have for formulating an idea stands alone. It is the important essence of what I do. ”
Kim Weston (b.1953-) was born into a family of photographers. He grew up in a rural area of the Big Sur, California coastline. By the time he was six years old, he knew that he wanted to be a photographer. While he was growing up in Garrapata Canyon, he was exposed to cameras, film and of course a darkroom. As a young child, Kim thought it was normal and that everyone had a darkroom in his or her house. Being of a shy nature he loved hanging out in the darkroom. Kim’s first job was helping his father Cole Weston fix negatives, agitating the film and moving them from one side of the tank to the other. His first camera was a Rolleiflex, a medium format twin lens reflex (TLR) camera.
In Kim’s teenage years, he sailed on his father’s sailboat “Scaldis,” a fifty foot steel yacht that was harbored in the Monterey Bay. He visited many ports, from North America to Central America, through the Panama Canal to Bermuda. He also sailed along the coast of South America, visited the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii and Tahiti. A Being afforded the experience of time on the open seas helped shape Kim’s good-natured disposition and his love for life.
When Kim reached his twenty’s, his main camera was a large format 4x5 Linhof - a gift from his uncle Brett Weston. He used this camera for many years with the focus shifting from photographing rocks and trees in the traditional Weston style to Nude Figure studies. Once when he was photographing a nude on Carmel beach, it started raining so he decided to take his model indoors. He painted a set in his studio, collected sand from the beach and photographed the model in the set. This event began his lifelong series of Nudes in the studio with painted sets.
During Kim’s late thirty’s he switched to a large format 8x10 Calumet film camera that was given to him by his father Cole. His series of studio nudes were becoming quite complex and often reflecting stories of his life. He would storyboard the whole series with drawings and stick figures, which represented the models. Sometimes he produced up to 15 photographs from one painted set series. For 15 years Kim would assist his uncle Brett Weston in the darkroom.
Now in his sixties, Kim works with a medium format Mamiya RB 67. He describes it as his “camera with wings” He loves the format, as it can be enlarged to a perfect 16x20. He prints 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20. He still shoots with film, develops his own work and prints in the darkroom. Kim does all of his post finishing work himself.
In addition to his work, Kim and his wife Gina, offer a number of photography workshops in and around the Carmel area and around the world. They also exclusively represent and sell Kim’s photographs, and also sell a select set of Edward Weston photographs from their private collection and private gallery in the Carmel Highlands of California. They have one son, Zachary Cole Weston.
Kim has lived in his grandfather, Edward Weston’s home for the past 27 years and is still “getting away with it.”