Feeling blue

Was it at that time that you cemented your close relationship with the West Coast tradition, exemplified obviously by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston?
Yes. In New York I had seen Edward's show and really studied it. I haven't studied a show that well since. I arrived in San Francisco in July and in December four students and I went down to see Edward. We had a marvellous afternoon out on Point Lobos. From then on I saw a great deal more of his work. I used to take classes down to him at least once a year, although he was pretty frail. We went down there three weeks in a row and talked and looked at his photography. That was also the time I started photographing Point Lobos. I was fascinated by it. That one year, 1946, was a very crucial one. It solidified the idea of the equivalent for me. I became very much closer to the Newhalls and that is when my curatorial career began to get underway. Strand, Stieglitz, Weston and Ansel all gave me exactly what I needed at that time. I took one thing from each: technique from Ansel, the love of nature from Weston and from Stieglitz the affirmation that I was alive and I could photograph. Those three things were very intense. And I also got an interest in the psychology of art from Meyer Schapiro.
Minor White

Dialogue with Photography, Paul Hill & Thomas Cooper

An explanation of equivalent.