40 years ago William Eggleston was the man that bought colour Photography into people's lives.
Eggleston was born in Tennesse in 1939 where he still lives and works today. he has been in the Photography business for around 50 years now. Eggleston has a real passion for his work and completely loves what he does. You can tell this from the way that he speaks about Photography and the concept of it.
If someone were to go up to him and ask what it was he was photographing he would usually turn around and say 'life today', He'd say this because he believed that it was all he could say to make people understand his work.
As a photographer you can never explain exactly what it is you are photographing, You can only show people when the picture is taken and hope that from seeing the final image they will also see the reason behind the image and understand it.
William very rarely titles his photographs as he likes to treat every image equally weather it be of a person or an object, They are all equal in his eyes. He limits himself to only taking one photograph per item as he believes that taking too many images of the same thing later becomes confusing and messy.
Eggleston was 18 when he got his first camera. This was back when all pictures were taken in black and white and he developed every photo he took himself. He believed that people should never take anything in a photo for granted as each and every space counts and is very important, even if it is just a white space, it is still an important part to a photo as it helps make up the image.
William Eggleston actually spent 6 years attending various uni's around the country to become an artist before he discovered photography, But never managed to graduate. In the 60's when he started his career in photography he would rarely dare to take any images of people as he felt he would be invading their personal space. But when he did take any pictures of a person he would do it in such a way that the person/people wouldn't even notice that they were being photographed.
His most famous photograph (untitled) was taken in the home of his best friend JC in Greenwood, Missisippi, Who was later murdered by being hit round the head with an axe and his house was then set on fire. The photo William had taken is known as 'The red room' This image relates to the murder of his bestfriend, The image portray's death, pain and murder with it's strong red colours throughout the image.
He later became close friend's with Andy Warhol, A famous pop artist who introduced him to filming and Eggleston then went on to make his own film which he named 'Stranded in Canton' which was mainly based on his drunken, musical friend's at house parties and nights out.
Eggleston was well known by his family and friend's as 'a ladies man' as he always seemed to have a few women on the go at once but they were all happy and aware of eachother.
To gain an understanding of how a camera works, William loved to experiment by taking cameras apart to take a look at how they could capture an image inside out, He was fascinated at the thought of what he would discover.
The way some of William's pictures are taken make it seem as though the world could be another place, unreal or even make believe. He treats everything he see's equally weather it be a person or an object, nothing is judged as more important than the other.
Sometime's Eggleston will take an image which to some people will look like nothing, he calls this 'photographing democratically'. He doesnt really explain what is going on in his photos which can create an atmosphere of aprehension and unease for those that want an image explained.
There is a book on William Eggleston named 'The Guide' which contains his most personal work yet, showing images of his family and friend's, some are of such private moments that have occurred within his family life.
When William's work was first published through his own exhibition, the paper's critisized it as 'dull' and 'one of the most boring exhibitions yet' This was because the public struggled to understand his work and the modern concept of it because at that time colour photography had not been widely recognised. The more Eggleston published his colourful photography though, the more people began to accept the idea of colour photography and modern art and so the paper's that had once critisized his work later apologised and started to praise it.
Eggleston believed that it was good for people's character to do something spontanious every once in a while and so he would often use the younger members within his family to photograph whenever he had an idea of a good image. No matter what time of the day it was, even early hours of the morning he would wake the youngsters and line them up on the porch outside the house to photograph them.
Some of Eggleston's closest friend's would describe him as a free spirited contemporary photographer whom certainly lives his life to the full and is a very talented/gifted artist.
As well as being a full time photographer Eggleston also enjoyed playing the piano and was rather good at it as he could often learn how to play a song after hearing it just once. He would only ever play the same song twice as he liked to learn how to play new somgs.
William decided to show some of his work to the head of Art school in New York who was electrified by his work so offered him his own show presenting the first book of colour photography so that Eggleston could make his mark and show his work at it's best in the exhibition in New York.
His work has now spread massively throughout the Art world, running through to music, fashion and even movies. Eggleston's work is a wide range of photograph's that sum up his life and the images continue to be added to the story behind the life of William Eggleston.
