Deconstructing a Photobook

The photobook that I have decided to research is ‘William Eggleston’s Guide’. In 1976, William Eggleston’s Guide was the first one-man show of colour photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum’s first publication of colour photography. The reception was divided and passionate. The book and show unabashedly forced the art world to deal with colour photography, a medium scarcely taken seriously at the time, and with the vernacular content of a body of photographs that could have been but definitely weren’t some average American’s Instamatic pictures from the family album. These photographs heralded a new mastery of the use of colour as an integral element of photographic composition.

Bound in a leather textured cover inset with a photograph of a tricycle and stamped with yearbook-style gold lettering, the Guide contains 48 images edited down from 375 shot between 1969 and 1971 and displayed a deceptively casual, actually super-refined look at the surrounding world. There are images of people, landscapes and odd little moments in and around Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis-when first opening the book the pages are a light green shade, they have a normal paper feel compared to the rest of the book which has the images printed onto photopaper. The light green pages of the book are filled with writing from William Eggleston starting from before he visited Memphis to take his images and is discussing what he wants to photograph on his trip, he also starts discussing photography in detail. He also mentions and praises photographers such as, Robert Adams, Alfred Stieglitz and Eugene Atget. He also goes on to discuss colour photography and called the creator of it a ‘technical genius’. One the 17th page of the book the first image you see when flicking through the pages of the book is of a light faded grey door, slightly to the right of the image, it has a gold door knocker on the centre of the door with a basket full of blue flowers hanging off it. I think this is a good image to start with as it sets the tone for the rest of the book.

William Eggleston’s Opening Image

In the 1970’s, William Eggleston made a photograph in Memphis Tennessee containing the small details of a home’s front door and a basketful of posies. Dappled light flitters across the surface revealing textures of paint and rust. In Eggleston’s image, there’s a scalloped shadow at the top, an embellished mailbox, layers of paint, colour patterns and accent trim.

Design Layout

This book is laid out so that the text comes first to give an idea of what the book is focused on and then shows the images. The images in the book on every other page with the left page of the book white and one image to each right page, most images are small and taken horizontally. On most pages the images are focused on the middle of the page, however some are placed on the top half of the page and others on the bottom. I think this is a good layout as it breaks up the images more than if they were all in the same place on every page.

Editing and Sequencing

All of William Eggleston’s images are taken in colour, and edited the same way. They all have an old fashioned look to them and the colours look more rich than they do bright. The images used in this book were 48 of 375 shots taken that had been specifically picked out and edited. All of the images have a familiar homely feel which can be felt when looking at them. All of the images are taken on a trip back to Eggleston’s hometown of Memphis. The way he has captured the images has a familiarity of photographing your own hometown and you can feel the connection Eggleston has through his images.