 How's it How's it? And today we're looking at the work of William Eggleston, a pioneering color photographer who began in the late 1960s. Famously dismissed by Ansel Adams, his work has gone on to achieve international recognition and remains as divisive today as there ever has been. Hi there, I'm Alex and thank you for joining me today on The Photographic Eye. William Eggleston is famous for his vibrant and lovely sumptuous prints in color of the seeming mundane and ordinary that surrounds us. As a young photographer in Memphis he complained that there was nothing to photograph in the town because everything was just simply too ugly and his wife responded by saying that he should go out and photograph the ugly and he certainly made that a hallmark of his career from the late 1960s. Now that Eggleston is in his late 70s he kind of you know obviously has a bit of a retrospective look across his career and a lot of people have considered that there must be hidden meaning and structure to his photographs and one of the things that I really love about Eggleston is that he doesn't try to to overthink anything about his his images and he just says look they just happen and Wiley believes that there are things in them that people can discover for the most part he's just happy with it being a photograph that he likes and doesn't really want to overanalyze anything. Of course the irony is that we're going to spend this video sort of looking at Eggleston's work and we're going to be sort of discussing it whereas the truth is that we could I could just show you 10 minutes worth of his images and let you make your own decision about about whether you like his work or not whether it speaks to you. This is a really important thing to to consider when looking at any photographer's work is is ultimately you know do you like what you see does it does it move you does it does it inspire something within you to try and like photography because it's got you know perfect composition or exceptional exposure or the focus is just so. I think Sunwood removes us from the idea of what photography ultimately should be and that is a way of responding and seeing the world that is around us in a way that helps other people feel something. Looking back at the Eggleston's work with with modern eyes it's hard to sort of see where the difference where all the controversy comes with with his photography. You know you sort of look at with modern perspective and think well I like this or I don't. In the late 90s and 70s you know it was sort of late 1960s rather the the art photography world was dominated by by black and white. Color was something that commercial photographers used and and people making holiday snapshots used. It certainly wasn't for the serious photographer and it certainly wasn't for somebody who who was an art photographer. When Eggleston had his solar exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art Ansel Adams famously wrote to somebody and and complained bitterly that that the Eggleston's work wasn't of any sort of consequence or any sort of substance because it was all in color and of course having this work in color and it was it was a first sort of solo exclusively color exhibition paved the way for a lot of photographers to feel that they were allowed to to photograph in color. Some people have come before sort of Erb Saul Leiter and and and some others but this was the first time that really a photographer had mounted an exhibition or maybe an exhibition had been mounted a photographer's work and and the shackles had been taken off. The young Eggleston was influenced to a degree by Robert Frank and Henry Cartier-Bresson and he met Cartier-Bresson a few years later who also added to the list of people who did not like Eggleston's work. He recalls sitting at a table with Henry Cartier-Bresson at a function and Cartier-Bresson turning to him and saying look you do realize that all of your work is just BS because it's in color and and and you can imagine that's quite a put down but Eggleston recalled that he just kind of went well thank you ever so much got up and and went to go and party elsewhere which it seems like of course a natural response for somebody who has made a career out of not really given a damn and and just doing what whatever feels to come naturally and you see this throughout his photography it is just all there it's just a response to to the world around him and and you know I think the world would be a better place or certainly the photography will be a place if there were more people who managed to just go with their gut and photograph what's around them in a way that that didn't try to have context and meaning and you know making a mission statement if you will. William Eggleston is a great example of somebody who you could look at their their photography and and begin to train your eye you know there are so many people who go they think that the camera is the way of becoming a better photographer but really that the best tool that that a photographer has is are their eyes and when you look at somebody like like Eggleston he is he is not crafting things you know from from props and and and setups and what have you he looks with his eyes and he brings the camera up to his face and he takes a photograph and somebody asked him you know why do you your process do you bring the camera up to your eye and and then realize it's not a good photograph and then you see you put the camera down and and he's like well no I will bring the camera up to my eye because I've already taken the photograph with my eye and and and that's that's a really great way of I think of looking at photography certainly if you if you're interested in this kind of photography is is not constantly seeing what it looks like through a viewfinder but it's learning to see the world as a photographer as somebody who can frame and compose an image with with your eyes. Eggleston's use of color is in my opinion absolutely beautiful he got it he has such a strong sense of of how the color works together and I think you know again we talked about this this kind of looking through through the lens of history at this remove it's it's hard to I'd imagine really grasp the impact that Eggleston's color photography had certainly in the early days when the world in which it inhabited or which it was elbowing its way into was it was a purely monochrome monochrome world where large black and white prints held sway and and here comes these young upstarts with their their brash and bold color prints you know and and Eggleston at the forefront and and it must have been a real shock and it must have been surprising in a way that that that we can't really grasp today but if you look at these photographs they still hold an impact for us even though they are images of the mundane and they're images of a world that does not exist anymore you know if you look at them all the stuff obviously they have very much of their time they still reach out from the page and they still grab us and and Eggleston has said that even you know even today that you know he hasn't seen any decent reproductions of of his prints and because of the the way that they were printed back in the late 60s and early 70s with with the with the Dysart process printing the lesson that we can take from looking at Eggleston's work is that doesn't matter that where we are or what confronts us as as photographers or even as non-photographers we can look at the world and see not beauty but but interest and and and things that are intriguing to us so long as we just are happy to let go of our shackles about what we expect and what we believe should be the correct way of of looking at photographs and and that's what I love about Eggleston's work that he he just reacts to what he sees and he photographs it and he says without comment either you like this this photograph or you don't and if you don't jog on if you do fantastic but that's all that there is to it and and don't try and scrape under the surface and find meanings that Eggleston has somehow secretively injected into his work because it isn't there whatever you see in his work is what you have found within his photography I think it's now more important than ever to to look at the work and the photography of people like William Eggleston to see that the mundane can be elevated to art if we just allow it to be and of course art can be anything that we want it to be a good place to discover more about William Eggleston's work is his monochrome William Eggleston's guide which was the accompaniment to the 1970s Museum and Modern Art show and that that's a really good sort of yes starting point so if you are interested go and check it out that it's fully available it's not out of print is it's really easy to find thanks ever so much for joining me here today on The Photographic Eye and I really hope that you enjoyed this brief look at the photography of William Eggleston if you are new here and you haven't done so already please hit that subscribe button so you'll be make make sure that you know when all these videos are coming out in the future if you've got a photographer who'd like to see featured here on this channel please drop me a line below and I look forward to hearing your input thanks again and I'll see you all again soon