William Eggleston (born 1939) is mainly known for bringing color photography to new heights from the 1960s and onwards. I am somewhat conflicted about his work.
While his effective use of color as a key element of his images is without doubt, his subject matter is ordinary life. Eggleston predominantly photographed American South, there are cars, bars, gas stations, fields, supermarkets, fast food, lost souls, dreamy stares, signs, streets, reflections… All of which constitutes the essential everyday life for many of us, even if we’re far away from Eggleston’s Memphis.
My first reaction to Eggleston was, and I think to a certain extent still is, quite mixed. While I found several of his images compelling, there were many that I found to be almost uninteresting. I am sure that there are many who may find this view to be almost blasphemous. I am not taking away from the fact that he was a pioneer in color photography and that many of his images are wonderful to see from a color, composition and documentary point of view, but given that he photographed every day life, why is it inconceivable to think that it may be possible for an element of banality to creep into some of his images? I have to admit that some of the images which first struck me as being boring proved otherwise the second or third time around but there are still a few which I find uninteresting and frankly, fail to understand why they are feted as being so highly commended.
In any case, I am not sure I am in the mood for a major debate, suffice to say that I agree with Peter Schjeldahl when he wrote about Eggleston at the Whitney
“You can always tell a William Eggleston photograph. It’s the one in color that hits you in the face and leaves you confused and happy, and perhaps convinces you that you don’t understand photography nearly as well as you thought you did.”
ll that aside, what does appeal to me is that Eggleston found beauty in the commonplace, almost junky situations. I also have a bit of a love affair with ordinary common place settings so I can relate.
These are the some of the images I really like.
