In 1937, Edward Weston was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a first for a photographer. He was given a two thousand dollar stipend and, with his companion Charis Wilson (whom he would later marry), he would photograph the American West from April 1937 to April 1938. Ansel Adams (pictured above) invited the couple to visit Yosemite, where he would take them to the High Sierra, a place that Weston had never visited. Upon arriving in Ansel Adams country, Weston wrote the following:
We speculated on what gastric adventures lay before us. Back at the start of our travels we had written Ansel to ask if he knew where we could get dehydrated vegetables. He had answered no, but anyway they were an insult to the taste buds; years of camping had taught him the needs of the outdoor diet were few and simple: salt, sugar, bacon, flour, jelly beans, and whiskey.*
Salt, sugar, bacon, flour, jelly beans, and whiskey. Well, that is one of the best things I have heard in a long while. And I hate jellybeans. But that list is just wonderful. Love it.