Nautilus is a black-and-white photograph taken by Edward Weston in 1927 of a single nautilus shell standing on its end against a dark background. It has been called "one of the most famous photographs ever made" and "a benchmark of modernism in the history of photography."

Like their painter counterparts, many photographers experimented with abstraction in the 1920s and 1930s, exploring relations of form, tonality, and space. Here, Weston isolates a nautilus shell against a solid black ground, creating a study of curves, subtle shadows, and contrasts between light and dark. As in many of his close-ups of natural forms, the nautilus appears both recognizable and yet strangely unfamiliar. Unlike the rigorously nonrepresentational compositions of photographers like László Moholy-Nagy, Weston's abstractions always remained grounded in objects from the real world; as he wrote in 1930, "To see the Thing Itself is essential."

Contact printed from original negative by master platinum printer Tom Millea in 2001. Titled, negative information and signed by Tom Millea and Kim Weston.