Edward Weston

The nude woman in this photograph is Charis Wilson, who began working with Edward Weston in 1934 as his driver and model and soon became his lover and wife. “He didn’t give any directions,” Wilson recalled in an interview, “He just said: ‘Go over there and sit down or lie down, or do what you feel like doing and move around all you want. Change your position as you want to.’” Once when Weston was shooting the empty landscape of Oceano Dunes, California, Wilson spontaneously removed her clothes and began to roll in the sand. The ten resulting images, including this picture, are striking for both their bold compositions and their uninhibited display of the female body.