William Eggleston is an American photographer who is known for working with colour photography. Using his home environment Memphis and Mississippi as his subject matter, Eggleston became famous for monumentalizing everyday subjects in his large-format prints. Eggleston captured Large amounts of his home environment, making his images very personal to him. William then went on to more commercial photography where he continued colour photography and highly saturated images in an awe for people to see insight of his life. I felt William was an idea artist for me to work from as his works his way around peoples lifestyles in an interesting and captivating way. I feel his utilising images are powerful in a sense that each individual has a very different routine in life and that different moments spark different opportunities. In this instance, every person has a journey and within that journey are multiple opportunities and goals within a day to day basis. I am going to continue by using Eggleston’s work as a guideline and inspiration into capturing random moments with an open mind.
“Sometimes I’ll leave the house with a fully loaded camera and end up with nothing. Its just about being there. Anywhere. Even the most uninteresting, ugly or boring places can for an instant become magical to me”.
I really like this quote from Eggleston, he understands about there being a time and place. I feel my ambitions for my project may take of in the style of Eggelston, as he knows how to compose a story. Above, “Huntsville, Alabama, CA. 1970″ shows a strong image of a man with a high working class status of his time. His trimmed clothing and wide open spaces signifies his detailed identity of power and wealth. Eggleston’s work is very symbolic, an iconic representation of humans in a position of various power and status. I wish to base this aspect primarily around my own family, so the reader is able to understand a story without a composed narrative.
William Eggleston’s Memphis: Photographs by Joanna Welborn
William Eggleston’s groundbreaking reinvention of color photography in the 1970s established him as one of America’s most original and influential artists. In Autumn of 2008, photographer Joanna Welborn made portraits of William Eggleston at the offices of his archive in Memphis, Tennessee. Welborn then spent time photographing throughout Memphis, at some of Eggleston’s favorite haunts as well as making photographs that evoke Eggleston’s own groundbreaking color images. Welborn here discovers a more intimate side to Eggleston, exploring the reminiscences of where he spends his time creating new ideas and media, the heart of his lifestyle and time. In my own project, I wish to accomplish a similar response so that the viewer could understand the relationship between my parents and our house.
Here is a link to the Article about Joanna’s project on Eggleston: http://www.cdsporch.org/archives/2590
