William Eggleston
William Eggleston
William Eggleston, is an American photographer. He is widely credited with increasing recognition for color photography as a legitimate artistic medium to display in art galleries...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth27 June 1939
CountryUnited States of America
eye attention something-new
I knew it was happening, but I never paid much attention to it . . . just to the passage of time. Something new always slowly changes right in front of your eyes-it just happens.
years play piano
I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.
attitude sorry guy
The immediate reviews were very hostile, but they didn't bother me-I had the attitude that I was right. The poor guys who were critics just didn't understand the works at all. I was sorry about that, but it didn't weigh on my mind a bit.
might way facts
Well, probably the best way to put it might be that at some time, not just in an instant, but over some period of time I became aware of the fact that I wanted to document examples like Kroger or Piggly Wiggly in the late '50s, early '60s.
photography school downtown
My friend who I went to boarding school with was interested in photography. He insisted that I buy a camera and marched me downtown.
discipline used subjects
I've also never had favorite pictures. Or subjects. I have this discipline of treating everything equally-I used to say "democratically."
thinking people hanging-out
Many people one meets in life somehow think they know you simply because they're hanging out at the same counter-but they really don't know a thing about you.
thinking color years
There's plenty of film out there, and quadrillions of cameras that use film-I don't think it makes much sense not to use it. The thing that's going out is the manufacturing of the paper. Incidentally, all these years my wife has told me that I'm color-blind.
cameras looks blind
I quite frequently don't look through the camera, which is very close to being blind.
want directors crime
Unfortunately they're practically all dead. And many were my closest associates: friends, co-directors, whatever you want to say-my partners in crime.
legends memphis clients
I have some that I have become a well-known-even infamous-client of, mostly in Memphis. But a great deal of that is legend and doesn't have anything to do with truth.
mind unseen doe
There are a lot of unseen projects. When a project is finished, I often physically, and in my mind, set it aside, intending something to happen with it, something that does or does not always happen. Now, a lot of these are being resurrected for the public.
black-and-white people supportive
A lot of my friends were mostly working in black-and-white-people like Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and others. We would exchange prints with each other, and they were always very supportive of what I was doing. What each of us was doing photographically was entirely different, but we were basically coming from the same place, sort of like a club.
brother thinking daddy
Half voluntarily, half Winston's older brother [William] would take me in, saying, "Daddy, I think you oughta do this." And I'd say, "I think you're right, maybe I do need it." Sometimes a week later I'd leave the place; sometimes I'd stick it out for a month.