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These are the works of one of our greatest living photographers - William Eggleston. He is a photo essayist of American life. They are more likely to be found in a major art museum than in a gallery.
I post these, because I am sure that many in this forum will have come to a different conclusion having looked at the photos without this information. Many of us are (and I will include myself) are quick to comment on photos posted in this forum, and make suggestions about composition, white balance, color saturation, etc. Perhaps we are more oriented towards a conventional view of photography and art. I know that looking at Eggleston's work, and that of others like Atget, etc. has helped me to expand my thinking about what a great photograph is.
Hope you don't mind me sharing. Sorry if you were fooled.
Paul
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Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
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Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
I post these, because I am sure that many in this forum will have come to a different conclusion having looked at the photos without this information. Many of us are (and I will include myself) are quick to comment on photos posted in this forum, and make suggestions about composition, white balance, color saturation, etc. Perhaps we are more oriented towards a conventional view of photography and art. I know that looking at Eggleston's work, and that of others like Atget, etc. has helped me to expand my thinking about what a great photograph is.
Hope you don't mind me sharing. Sorry if you were fooled.
Paul
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Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
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Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
TheRealTim
Senior Member
...regardless of who took them. We all have these type of photos
laying around. Just goes to show...it's not who you know...it's who you...
Tim
I just want to learn photography...
laying around. Just goes to show...it's not who you know...it's who you...
Tim
I just want to learn photography...
Nuala
Forum Enthusiast
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Nuala
Nuala
blankj
Leading Member
Wow! And I thought most of my photos stunk....at first I thought these were yours and I was going to just keeping browsing the forum for something interesting (as opposed to telling you that they were pretty ugly) but it also occurred to me that they were rather "dated" and that you were up to something. Any way, I find the fact that these were actually posted (presumably by Mr. Eggleston, himself?) to be utterly fascinating. ...Or am I just too damned ignorant to see the art in them....if there is art in them, I'd really appreciate the education.
Actually, I did have a touch of "nostalgia" viewing the shot of Atlanta, as it reminded me of the Atlanta I watched developing in the late 70's to early 80's as a student at Georgia Tech...That part of town (in the background, anyway) doesn't look anything like that any more.
-John
Actually, I did have a touch of "nostalgia" viewing the shot of Atlanta, as it reminded me of the Atlanta I watched developing in the late 70's to early 80's as a student at Georgia Tech...That part of town (in the background, anyway) doesn't look anything like that any more.
-John
What do you think of these photos? Do you think they would sell?
Jimmy Lightfoot
Member
--
litehorse
litehorse
http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/09/07/eggleston/
The man who reinvented color photography is famous for pictures that some call banal, and others call extraordinary. He says his subjects are the very stuff of life.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Stanley Booth
Sept. 7, 1999 ~ William Eggleston, now 60 years old, seems securely attached to the title "Father of Color Photography." Maybe the word "color" should be modified by "art" or "artistic," because of course he didn't invent the process. There have been those, however, who would deny that Eggleston's photography has much of anything to do with art.
... (continued in the above link)
PS all the posted photos are Copyright William Eggleston and posted on this site:
PPS more photos and info:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/eggleston/eggleston2.html
The man who reinvented color photography is famous for pictures that some call banal, and others call extraordinary. He says his subjects are the very stuff of life.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Stanley Booth
Sept. 7, 1999 ~ William Eggleston, now 60 years old, seems securely attached to the title "Father of Color Photography." Maybe the word "color" should be modified by "art" or "artistic," because of course he didn't invent the process. There have been those, however, who would deny that Eggleston's photography has much of anything to do with art.
... (continued in the above link)
PS all the posted photos are Copyright William Eggleston and posted on this site:
PPS more photos and info:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/eggleston/eggleston2.html
He won the Hasselblad Award in 1998
Text from The Encyclopedia of Photography (1984)
Eggleston, William
American, 1937 -
The color photographs of William Eggleston first came to public attention in the mid-1970s, most forcefully in the 1976 exhibition William Eggleston's Guide, which originated at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and traveled to five other U.S. museums. Color photography offered for exhibition up to that time had remained within the conventions of art photography, modern painting, and commercial illustration. Eggleston's work startled audiences by intensifying the banality of the color snapshot to a level that demanded aesthetic response, something that many viewers were unprepared to give, responding instead with outrage that "this" should be offered as art. The problem was that they were forced to confront the emptiness, even the visual insipidness, of typically American scenes. His pictures showed nondescript interiors and exteriors typical of modern American blindness to style or taste - quintessentially bland rooms, garage doors, houses, intersections. The photographs were dye-transfer prints that translated well-composed snapshot views into large-size images of saturated color and heightened contrast. Andy Warhol forced attention on the formal aspects of soup cans, cleanser boxes, and similar mundane objects by physically enlarging them to enormous proportions. Eggleston forced attention by exaggerating the ungraceful seeing and falsely "real" color of amateur 35mm slide photography. In effect, visual shouting made audiences confront the lack of beauty or style in the snapshots and the contemporary environment that they were accustomed to accepting without notice. It was the snapshot aesthetic used with a nonviolent vengeance, and the echoes of the attack have not died.
William Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1937. Educated at Vanderbilt University, Delta State College, and the University of Mississippi, he makes a living as a freelance photographer in the Mississippi-Tennessee region and in Washington, D.C. He has been a lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University (1974), a researcher in color video at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1978-1979), and recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts Survey. His personal work is done primarily in the rural southeastern United States where he currently uses large-format equipment and color negative materials to photograph land- and skyscapes with a romantic vision well beyond that of snapshots.
And another:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/eggleston/eggleston_articles2.html
Text from The Encyclopedia of Photography (1984)
Eggleston, William
American, 1937 -
The color photographs of William Eggleston first came to public attention in the mid-1970s, most forcefully in the 1976 exhibition William Eggleston's Guide, which originated at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and traveled to five other U.S. museums. Color photography offered for exhibition up to that time had remained within the conventions of art photography, modern painting, and commercial illustration. Eggleston's work startled audiences by intensifying the banality of the color snapshot to a level that demanded aesthetic response, something that many viewers were unprepared to give, responding instead with outrage that "this" should be offered as art. The problem was that they were forced to confront the emptiness, even the visual insipidness, of typically American scenes. His pictures showed nondescript interiors and exteriors typical of modern American blindness to style or taste - quintessentially bland rooms, garage doors, houses, intersections. The photographs were dye-transfer prints that translated well-composed snapshot views into large-size images of saturated color and heightened contrast. Andy Warhol forced attention on the formal aspects of soup cans, cleanser boxes, and similar mundane objects by physically enlarging them to enormous proportions. Eggleston forced attention by exaggerating the ungraceful seeing and falsely "real" color of amateur 35mm slide photography. In effect, visual shouting made audiences confront the lack of beauty or style in the snapshots and the contemporary environment that they were accustomed to accepting without notice. It was the snapshot aesthetic used with a nonviolent vengeance, and the echoes of the attack have not died.
William Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1937. Educated at Vanderbilt University, Delta State College, and the University of Mississippi, he makes a living as a freelance photographer in the Mississippi-Tennessee region and in Washington, D.C. He has been a lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University (1974), a researcher in color video at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1978-1979), and recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts Survey. His personal work is done primarily in the rural southeastern United States where he currently uses large-format equipment and color negative materials to photograph land- and skyscapes with a romantic vision well beyond that of snapshots.
And another:
http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/eggleston/eggleston_articles2.html
Dr. Don Sandell208748
Forum Enthusiast
Just goes to show you that we all are capable of taking junk images. I do daily. But when the day is over and I go thru my images and find one or two WOW pics.........it makes it all worth the effort.
--
Photography has suprisingly little to do with cameras; but indeed almost everything to do with the person behind the camera.
--
Photography has suprisingly little to do with cameras; but indeed almost everything to do with the person behind the camera.
Jitter
Forum Enthusiast
Well, 12 of those "junk" images sold for $152,200 at a Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg sale in October 2002.
Paul
Paul
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Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
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Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
Paul
--
Paul
------------------------------------------------
Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
--------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
As above, in October 2002 12 of these sold for over $150,000 at auction.
Read some of my posts above re: why.
Paul
Paul
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Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
--------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
Read some of my posts above re: why.
Paul
--
Paul
------------------------------------------------
Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
--------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
Jitter
Forum Enthusiast
pbleic
Were they a part of a series of pictures, if they were presented in the context of a show, maybe, alone they are very poor and I don't care who took them.
--
Thanks,
JR
Were they a part of a series of pictures, if they were presented in the context of a show, maybe, alone they are very poor and I don't care who took them.
--
Thanks,
JR
Jitter
Forum Enthusiast
--Read some of my posts above re: why.
Paul
--
Paul
------------------------------------------------
Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
--------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
Thanks,
JR
THE ERNA AND VICTOR HASSELBLAD FOUNDATION
PRESS RELEASE
William Eggleston is awarded the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for 1998
The Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Photography Prize for 1998 has been awarded William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennesee, USA. The prize will be presented to William Eggleston at a ceremony in Göteborg, Sweden, on March 6 1999, coinciding with the opening of an exhibition of his works at the Hasselblad Center, adjoining the Göteborg Museum of Art.
The Foundation motivates its choice as follows: "William Eggleston has been one of the leading pioneers in the field of color photography since the 1970s. With his specific vision of the real world, particularly the American South, he has developed the color photograph as an independent medium. He has also come to utilize the potential of color to the full, seeing it as a fundamental feature of perception. To Eggleston, color became a vital aspect of capturing daily life and its surroundings. He has introduced a new aesthetic, a new "democratic" way of seeing - more influenced by his personal vision than by previous stylistic models. Just as Robert Frank established an informal "beat" aesthetic in his work in the 1950s, in the 1970s William Eggleston has transformed the potential of what can be expressed with color."
William Eggleston was born in Memphis, USA, in 1939. At the age of eighteen he acquired his first camera, a Canon range finder followed, the year after, by his first Leica, the camera which would be with him throughout his career. During his studies at universities in Nashville, Cleveland and Oxford, he found himself as an artist. In 1959 he discovered two books which would be of great importance to him and which brought him into photography; Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment and Walker Evans’s American Photographs. In Cartier-Bresson’s work he particularly recognized the possibilities in capturing a moment as well as the rich tonality which could be perceived in black and white photography.
William Eggleston’s early black and white photographs show strong influences from Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. Furthermore, he has been influenced by old photographs from the 1800’s, as well as by photographers like Eugène Atget. In contrast to his predecessors, Eggleston’s small format photographs contain everything, small and large, close and far away, conscious and unconscious, light and dark as well as mixtures of different light sources.
Since 1965 William Eggleston has been experimenting with color, first with slides and later on negative material. In 1967 he met John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and showed him his pictures, although he was not invited to have an exhibition at MoMA until 1976. That exhibition was extremely controversial but it validated color photography as a legitimate medium of art. In 1974 he received a Guggenheim fellowship, and he was appointed lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University. The following year he received a National Endowment for the Arts Photographer’s Fellowship. In connection with the exhibition at MoMA, his first book, William Eggleston’s Guide was published. Two years later, William Eggleston was appointed researcher in Color Video at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1980 he has been traveling for different projects, both on commission and for projects of his own. His projects during these years include: "The Louisiana Project"; Elvis Presley’s "Graceland"; "The English Rose"; "The Democratic Forest" and "Faulkner’s Mississippi".
William Eggleston claims that any place is good for taking pictures. He often chooses unimportant places and people, a lot of his photographs are from his neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee and the state of Mississippi. His goal seems to be to capture the normal moment which is always quietly present, in a way related to the casualness of snapshots. His projects contain thousands of prints displaying his curiosity and enthusiasm for unexpected visual experiences. William Eggleston’s disregard for conventions of subject matter and style has given him a prominent place in both American and international art.
William Eggleston had a pioneering role in color photography, but his art should not only be seen as a formal gesture. His pictures are about color but they definitely also depict the "factual" world in the tradition of the most important documentary photography, following the classical masters and his own special view. He has had more than 50 individual exhibitions in well known institutions such as: Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photographer’s Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Shiraishi Contemporary Art, Yokohama. He has also taken part in a large number of group exhibitions. He has published numerous books, catalogues, and portfolios including14 Pictures (1974), William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), Election Eve (1977), Troubled Waters (1980), The Democratic Forest (1989), Faulkner’s Mississippi (1991), and Ancient and Modern (1992). His works are collected in international museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum Folkwang, Essen. In 1991 he was appointed honorary professor in Fine Arts at the Rhodes College in Memphis and in 1995 he was awarded the University of Memphis Distinguished Achievement Award.
William Eggleston also spends time drawing and painting, listening to and playing music and developing loudspeaker technology.
PRESS RELEASE
William Eggleston is awarded the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography for 1998
The Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Photography Prize for 1998 has been awarded William Eggleston, Memphis, Tennesee, USA. The prize will be presented to William Eggleston at a ceremony in Göteborg, Sweden, on March 6 1999, coinciding with the opening of an exhibition of his works at the Hasselblad Center, adjoining the Göteborg Museum of Art.
The Foundation motivates its choice as follows: "William Eggleston has been one of the leading pioneers in the field of color photography since the 1970s. With his specific vision of the real world, particularly the American South, he has developed the color photograph as an independent medium. He has also come to utilize the potential of color to the full, seeing it as a fundamental feature of perception. To Eggleston, color became a vital aspect of capturing daily life and its surroundings. He has introduced a new aesthetic, a new "democratic" way of seeing - more influenced by his personal vision than by previous stylistic models. Just as Robert Frank established an informal "beat" aesthetic in his work in the 1950s, in the 1970s William Eggleston has transformed the potential of what can be expressed with color."
William Eggleston was born in Memphis, USA, in 1939. At the age of eighteen he acquired his first camera, a Canon range finder followed, the year after, by his first Leica, the camera which would be with him throughout his career. During his studies at universities in Nashville, Cleveland and Oxford, he found himself as an artist. In 1959 he discovered two books which would be of great importance to him and which brought him into photography; Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment and Walker Evans’s American Photographs. In Cartier-Bresson’s work he particularly recognized the possibilities in capturing a moment as well as the rich tonality which could be perceived in black and white photography.
William Eggleston’s early black and white photographs show strong influences from Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. Furthermore, he has been influenced by old photographs from the 1800’s, as well as by photographers like Eugène Atget. In contrast to his predecessors, Eggleston’s small format photographs contain everything, small and large, close and far away, conscious and unconscious, light and dark as well as mixtures of different light sources.
Since 1965 William Eggleston has been experimenting with color, first with slides and later on negative material. In 1967 he met John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and showed him his pictures, although he was not invited to have an exhibition at MoMA until 1976. That exhibition was extremely controversial but it validated color photography as a legitimate medium of art. In 1974 he received a Guggenheim fellowship, and he was appointed lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University. The following year he received a National Endowment for the Arts Photographer’s Fellowship. In connection with the exhibition at MoMA, his first book, William Eggleston’s Guide was published. Two years later, William Eggleston was appointed researcher in Color Video at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1980 he has been traveling for different projects, both on commission and for projects of his own. His projects during these years include: "The Louisiana Project"; Elvis Presley’s "Graceland"; "The English Rose"; "The Democratic Forest" and "Faulkner’s Mississippi".
William Eggleston claims that any place is good for taking pictures. He often chooses unimportant places and people, a lot of his photographs are from his neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee and the state of Mississippi. His goal seems to be to capture the normal moment which is always quietly present, in a way related to the casualness of snapshots. His projects contain thousands of prints displaying his curiosity and enthusiasm for unexpected visual experiences. William Eggleston’s disregard for conventions of subject matter and style has given him a prominent place in both American and international art.
William Eggleston had a pioneering role in color photography, but his art should not only be seen as a formal gesture. His pictures are about color but they definitely also depict the "factual" world in the tradition of the most important documentary photography, following the classical masters and his own special view. He has had more than 50 individual exhibitions in well known institutions such as: Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photographer’s Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and Shiraishi Contemporary Art, Yokohama. He has also taken part in a large number of group exhibitions. He has published numerous books, catalogues, and portfolios including14 Pictures (1974), William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), Election Eve (1977), Troubled Waters (1980), The Democratic Forest (1989), Faulkner’s Mississippi (1991), and Ancient and Modern (1992). His works are collected in international museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, and National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum Folkwang, Essen. In 1991 he was appointed honorary professor in Fine Arts at the Rhodes College in Memphis and in 1995 he was awarded the University of Memphis Distinguished Achievement Award.
William Eggleston also spends time drawing and painting, listening to and playing music and developing loudspeaker technology.
A discription of Egglestons work from The Encyclopedia of Photography
Eggleston forced attention by exaggerating the ungraceful seeing and falsely "real" color of amateur 35mm slide photography. In effect, visual shouting made audiences confront the lack of beauty or style in the snapshots and the contemporary environment that they were accustomed to accepting without notice. It was the snapshot aesthetic used with a nonviolent vengeance, and the echoes of the attack have not died.
he took big pictures of the world we choose to shut out of our minds... what a genius if only I had thought to sell my crappy pics as art and not crappy pics.
This guy truley lived the american dream... get rich of selling cheap stuff.
Eggleston forced attention by exaggerating the ungraceful seeing and falsely "real" color of amateur 35mm slide photography. In effect, visual shouting made audiences confront the lack of beauty or style in the snapshots and the contemporary environment that they were accustomed to accepting without notice. It was the snapshot aesthetic used with a nonviolent vengeance, and the echoes of the attack have not died.
he took big pictures of the world we choose to shut out of our minds... what a genius if only I had thought to sell my crappy pics as art and not crappy pics.
This guy truley lived the american dream... get rich of selling cheap stuff.
First of all, I think it took a fair amount of ba!!s to post these as ostensibly your own work in order to make your point. Most of us wouldn't expose ourselves to that kind of criticism if even for the few minutes it took to read your explanatory post.
As far as the photos go, they are nothing extrordinary in todays world. What makes them valuable is who took them, not the pictures themselves. There are people willing to pay millions for a painting of a Campbells soup can because it was done by Andy Worholl; or a bicycle seat welded to handlebars by Picasso. They are "worth" the money because there is always someone willing to pay that or more for them.
We all have throw away pictures in some dusty corner, and if we were ever lucky enough to achieve worldwide fame for our photography, there would be someone eager to dust them off for a profit.
Alastair
Thanks, but I made very sure not to claim attribution for the work. I said "what do you think?" and "would they sell?"
Eggleston continues to make photography and the pictures aren't all that different looking.
The difference is that these ARE the photos that made him famous; not the dregs.
--
Paul
------------------------------------------------
Pbase supporter
Photographs at: http://www.pbase.com/pbleic/photos
--------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 All rights reserved.
Dr. Don Sandell208748
Forum Enthusiast
That's OK. There are suckers born every minute. Doesn't change the fact that junk is still junk. I suppose I could sell my junk too if I had his name.
--
Photography has suprisingly little to do with cameras; but indeed almost everything to do with the person behind the camera.
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