“Down time” is one term that will never apply to Durango’s Open Shutter Gallery.

The Main Avenue showplace of photography rarely is without a world-class exhibit; days after striking the set on Steve McCurry’s “The Iconic Images,” owner Margy Dudley and her staff rehung the gallery walls with the work of one of the most storied family names in the business: the Westons. A two-month exhibit of photographs will open today with a public reception that third-generation photographer Cara Weston will attend.

“I felt like someone in the family needed to be there, and it’s a great gallery and I love Durango,” Cara Weston said from her home near Big Sur on the central California coast. “Everyone’s so friendly in that town. They look you in the eye when you walk down the street. It’s great.”

Weston and her brother Kim Weston – both photographers – are grandchildren of Edward Weston, an icon in the world of fine-art photography. His work in the early 20th century and leading up to his death in 1958 was considered groundbreaking in the field. His sons, Brett and Cole, continued his legacy and are equally canonic.

“I knew my grandfather was a photographer, and of course my dad and uncle were, too, so I just thought this is what families do,” said Kim Weston from the family base in Carmel, Calif. “I haven’t done gallery work for about 10 or 15 years, but I’ve had my work (at the Open Shutter) before, and we wanted to do the whole family thing. I’m sorry I won’t be able to be there, but I’m glad Cara’s going.”

Trying to pigeonhole the specialties of each Weston is an exercise in futility; each has photographed so many subjects in almost every style that crossover is inevitable. But Edward Weston made his name as a black-and-white photographer of mostly inanimate objects but also with nudes. That’s why he’s hard to define. (The show at Open Shutter includes many of those nudes.)

Kim and Cara’s dad, Cole, was the only Weston to use color regularly; his brother Brett’s work was more similar to Edward’s. Kim does primarily figures, and Cara is the only Weston to board up the darkroom and go digital. A former director of the family’s Weston Gallery, she didn’t begin pursuing photography professionally until she was in her 40s.

“It was a very male-dominated family as far as photography goes,” Cara Weston said.

Even though she worked with Brett for years as a spotter and model, she did not receive a lot of education from him or her father. She learned most of her future profession at a community college.

“I raised my kids, and that’s the most important thing I did,” she said. “But after I left the gallery, I said ‘Why don’t I do this for myself?’”

And so she did. Now, she and Kim are full-time photographers and also responsible for caretaking the archives of the three elder Westons: Edward, Brett and Cole Weston. The new exhibit at Open Shutter is evidence of how well they’ve done it.

ted@durangoherald.com