Exploring William Eggleston's Approach to Photography 

Oh yes: the first landscape was super boring. 0:50

0.50 landscape, tree 13.11 concern me, if I posted them on Facebook maybe maybe my mom would give them a like but no one else.

You are right. Not boring. Eggleston has been at this type of thing for a LONG time.

Ever go out and shoot stuff like this, then come home to review 500 pictures that seem mediocre? Haha

See, this is the reason art is so subjective. One takes a photo, one says it's so boring and unnecessary, and one says it is so refreshing and unique and thought provoking....

He is unique in his style, but nothing I see in these images are ordinary... Nothing in the real world is ordinary. Everything is always different, always new, every instant...

I can imagine future historians trying to piece together an idea of how society looked today by canvasing billions of selfies just to see what was accidentally caught in the backgrounds.

Lets!

Thank you for this comment, it made me realized a deeper understanding as to why I like or love certain Japanese films and anime. It is far more interesting when a film takes its audience on a deeper journey with the characters to help the audience have a deeper understanding and develop a deeper connection with the characters in the films or shows.

I was going to write my own comment about the video, but then I realized you had already started something in the vein of my own impression. I was going to say that there's something like an undercurrent between the work of Yasujiro Ozu, Giorgio Morandi and Eggleston. To me, saying their work is boring is premature if you only see the figurative topics of their images. Morandi, who later in life painted the same set of objects in the same table in the same room, but always obtained subtle variations that justified each piece, used to say that there's nothing more abstract than reality, and I tend to think that's what these three gentlemen had in common: they take the figuratively ordinary to build up a sort of abstract structure that's more interesting than the figurative content. The three artists were very clear about one thing: they kind of pictured the same things over and over; so, maybe their work is less about the things themselves, and more about their plastic value in terms of geometry, color, texture, spatial relationships and so on. I spend entire college courses telling my students that it's not things that are interesting (or uninteresting for that matter), but people, and the way we see. And images are just the visible trace of the process of that spirit. I tend to think those two things, plastic value and the artist's own disposition to see, are what we treasure in Egglestone's work, and Ozu's, and Morandi's. For many of us, it's not related to American identity (some of us couldn't care less), but to those other values.

@@cesardiaz8774 indeed! The ability to inject your own personality into your work like that is something I struggle with, but something I do admire.

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Really, I was going through literally decades of old photos my father had taken, and all the vacations and nature stuff gets boring. But now and then, there'll be some old photos he took for some practical purpose, of the yard, of the cars, for some project he was working on, and those are special.

@@cathrynm I hear you, the volume of pictures matters for sure.

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I remember going up to my family's vacation cabin, which is on this remote little island in Lake Huron off of northern Michigan, and taking all these pictures of all sorts of stuff. Lots of closeups of things, etc. and I showed them to my mom, who had been up there with me, and her reaction was "why did you take pictures of all this stuff? this isn't what makes me think of this place!" and I'm like... well, I'm not you, am I?

@@ThePhotographicEye I like that you do a somewhat impassionate presentation yet give quite insightful commentary at the same time. I might add my reply to a seemingly dismissive comment, however I'm still unclear as to where the Monsieur Pranzé stands: A "Dandy or a Fop" is a man overmuch concerned with neatness and style in fashion and appearance. The definition is basic but the use of the term going back to the 18th century, implied affectation and feigned indifference or cynicism. It implied the "Dandy" was somewhat shallow and only concerned with their own "Peacockish" ways. In the case of Eggleston, you couldn't be further from the truth or understanding. His style of photography has a distinct quality of a snapshot but snapshots they are not, and neither was he a hobbyist. In contriving his images there was a depth of understanding of the visual arts of his present and the past that informed his eye. To so nonchalantly trivialize him as a "Hobbyist" dandy who took snapshots implies that the body of his work are all accidental. At first, I got the impression that you were making an observation favorable to Bill, however you contradicted yourself immediately with the "Dandy" comment and left me wondering. Then the throwaway line reeking of snobbishness that Bill's work has somehow and for no good reason, become iconic decades later? It was iconic at the time and widely lauded as such. My father was a friend of Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Paul Caponigro among other photographers, as well called Rothko & Newman, uncle Mark and uncle Barney. So, someone deeply rooted in 20th century art and photography, the first person to photograph Mardi Gras in the French Quarter seriously AND in black and white, standing alone, the archive of his Mardi Gras photographs covers over 3 decades and a conservatively estimated 50 thousand images. Minor published his other work in Aperture in the 1950's. This to say, that he and I were/are serious devotees of black and white photography, however my father often spoke of his admiration for what Bill did with color. There is great thought for composition and evoking great depth of feeling in his approach to photography as well as a solid grasp of the technical elements of photography NOT found in a hobbyist or snapshot approach! Again, Bill's imagery is far from accidental it was, before Warhol became famous for the truly banal, a significant contribution to Modern Art, sometimes a tongue in cheek, smile and wink but still very much in the vein of the AbEx movement if you look beyond the documentation of ordinary things, to shapes, colors, composition and overall look in forms and textures, it's very much at times abstract expressionism

You nailed how I felt. Crazy or an imbecile. I literally have tons of photos news paper dispensers, garbage cans, telephone booths and I think they are amazing ... And I thought I was crazy or something but it brings me joy.

People take photographs to please others, photographing what makes you happy is much better, no pressure or judgements.

I think she heaps better

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That’s awesome, thank you for watching and subscribing.

Quite the opposite, he always went out early and late, when light is nice

I like his photos as well but the question is if his photos were still magical if they were shot today and in the place were I live showing things totally familiar to me (modern cars, modern buildings etc.). I guess that at least part of the magic comes from the fact that his photos show a time and a place that are not familiar to me. Also, our times are much less colorful than the 60s and 70s... just look at the color of the cars or advertising signs. The same happens with the work of Fred Herzog which I also like a lot.

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Only the pretensions are "extraordinary" ...

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"He basically is a dandy who likes to take snapshots as a hobby," you got that right, but... It was also iconic in 1976 when his book came out, had a show at MOMA and became one of a handful of color photographers who revolutionized the photographic art realm along with the likes of: Shore, Graham, Parr and Meyerowitz.

A "Dandy" is a man overmuch concerned with neatness and style in fashion and appearance. The definition is basic but the use of the term going back to the 18th century, implied affectation and feigned indifference or cynicism. It implied the "Dandy" was somewhat shallow and only concerned with their own "Peacockish" ways. In the case of Eggleston, you couldn't be further from the truth or understanding. His style of photography has a distinct quality of a snapshot but snapshots they are not, and neither was he a hobbyist. In contriving his images there was a depth of understanding of the visual arts of his present and the past that informed his eye. To so nonchalantly trivialize him as a "Hobbyist" dandy who took snapshots implies that the body of his work are all accidental. At first, I got the impression that you were making an observation favorable to Bill, however you contradicted yourself immediately with the "Dandy" comment and left me wondering. Then the throwaway line reeking of snobbishness that Bill's work has somehow and for no good reason, become iconic decades later? It was iconic at the time and widely lauded as such. My father was a friend of Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Paul Caponigro among other photographers, as well called Rothko & Newman, uncle Mark and uncle Barney. So, someone deeply rooted in 20th century art and photography, the first person to photograph Mardi Gras in the French Quarter seriously AND in black and white, standing alone, the archive of his Mardi Gras photographs covers over 3 decades and a conservatively estimated 50 thousand images. Minor published his other work in Aperture in the 1950's. This to say, that he and I were/are serious devotees of black and white photography, however my father often spoke of his admiration for what Bill did with color. There is great thought for composition and evoking great depth of feeling in his approach to photography as well as a solid grasp of the technical elements of photography NOT found in a hobbyist or snapshot approach! Again, Bill's imagery is far from accidental it was, before Warhol became famous for the truly banal, a significant contribution to Modern Art, sometimes a tongue in cheek, smile and wink but still very much in the vein of the AbEx movement if you look beyond the documentation of ordinary things, to shapes, colors, composition and overall look in forms and textures, it's very much at times abstract expressionism.

@@paulbonge6617 Dude, you're completely overthinking. I totally admire William and bought many of his books. What I meant is that if you take the many cars he photographed for example, it must have looked extremely banal, boring at the time. But now? It's iconic. And reminds oneself that what we see as non-remarkable because it's everywhere today, can be remarkably interesting and full of atmosphere in decades. Also his photos were not really acclaimed at the time, it was more his printing techniques. One can see in his Paris book that's much more modern, that he's capable of creating incredible compositions with the everyday that is much closer to what I see every day, being french. Also dandy was used as a loose term to describe someone who is into hobbies in a refined way, but he's also an alcoholic and a daydreamer. All of that I don't mean negatively, would gladly live that life if I didn't have to work.

@@pranze3484 You still at least seem to suggest that his work is mainly of value due to nostalgic reasons, or for the fact that his prints were dye transfers. Neither is the case; yes, it was noted that his prints were highly saturated due to that particular process, but his notoriety came about mostly for his photographs' unique compositions- how they incorporated and used color, his "snapshot" aesthetic (a complete oversimplification) and yes, his banal subject matter. And agreed, hobbyists can most definitely be serious (and knowledgeable) about their work.

@@pranze3484 No one is going to think the back of a toyota camery is interesting and full of atmosphere in a giant strip mall parkinglot with your backdrop being target and panera bread.

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