When I began my photographic life, Edward Weston (American Photographer 1886 - 1958) was my idol. I read all the books on his life and knew most of the photographs he had taken or so I thought. I devoured everything about him and his work. In the late 70s I remember going to the Witkin Gallery in New York City with my photography class. There in a bin was a pile of Ed Weston prints just wrapped in plastic. They were for sale at $100. I remember picking them up and being mesmerized. I wanted to buy one. Of course that was impossible being broke college student.

In 1999, I went on a trip to California. We were staying with friends in Monterey. One morning I was able to set off by myself to go photographing. Weston had lived the last part of his life in Carmel. He spent much of his time photographing at Point Lobos. The preserve is quite large at about 400 acres. Naturally I headed to Point Lobos to photograph where Weston had photographed. I spent the day walking the cliffs and photographing the ocean, waves, trees, and rocks.

A couple of weeks later I bought a new book on Ed Weston called Forms of Passion. I had the film developed and started to print the photographs from my California trip. At the time printing was a long process. I would expose the paper in total darkness, then put it into a processing machine. It took four minutes before the print would come out. I had to do one at a time until the color was perfect. Sometimes it might take four or five adjustments. Once I was satisfied I would make a few copies of the image and then repeat the process with the next one. This meant I had quite a bit of time sitting there waiting to see the dry print. I would pass time by reading photo books.

On the night that I printed this photograph, I was reading my new Weston book. I printed the rock and set it aside. I continued working on other prints. A couple of hours later I turned the page and there was a photograph I had never seen before. Then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute! That looks like the one I printed earlier!” I pulled it out. I would not have been able to do this if I had tried. I had photographed the same one square foot in a 400 acres preserve 69 years later without knowing the image. Life sometimes delivers strange unexplained connections.