William Eggleston
William Eggleston ( born July 27, 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American photographer. He is considered a pioneer of color photography.
Life and work
William Eggleston, who comes from a wealthy Southern family, grew up on a cotton plantation ( Mayfair ) his family near Sumner in Mississippi and began the age of ten with the photography. During his studies at Vanderbilt University and the University of Mississippi, he became deeply involved with photography. From the late 1950s he worked as a freelance photographer in the southern states and in Washington, DC Sustainable impressed by him in 1959, exhibitions of black and white photographs of Henri Cartier -Bresson (The Decisive Moment ), Robert Frank and Walker Evans ( American Photographs ). In 1965 he experimented with color photos and used slide films in 1967, he moved to color negatives.
Eggleston learned in New York leading photographers of his time such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand know and met 1967 John Szarkowski, the former curator of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976 taught Szarkowski him a solo exhibition at the New York Museum of. The exhibition Photographs by William Eggleston established his fame and is still one of the milestones of photography - as well as the same time published and are widely available as an eBook William Eggleston 's Guide. Although the exhibition was misunderstood by critics ( The New York Times described it as the " most hated show of the year " ), they should write history and mark the beginning of modern color photography. Since then, William Eggleston is considered the " father of color photography " - not because of its technical nature, but his artistic innovation.
He soon turned to plain, not picture worthy applicable motives, comparable to the painter Edward Hopper. The deductions he could be prepared in a commercial dye-transfer process that has been used previously only for magazines and advertisements. One example is the image of the red ceiling Greenwood, Mississippi (1973 ), which was style icon for future photographers .. The color looks pumped up, the angle of view from the frog perspective unconventional, like a snapshot. The lamp is only one version of a bare bulb, but lead to the three white wire - the irritating detail. The arrangement of cables and space edges causes a balanced composition.
With the introduction of color perception as a natural condition, he influenced the international contemporary photography decisive: Juergen Teller, Andreas Gursky, Sofia Coppola and David Lynch relate to him.
In the following years, Eggleston made numerous trips abroad (including England, Spain, Jamaica, Kenya, South Africa, China ), and he received commissions for documentation of industrial areas and administrative buildings. For a tourist guide Eggleston photographed in 1983 Graceland, the last refuge of Elvis Presley. He had, however, contrary to his habit, work in confined spaces and use artificial light. The leader of the images was also only offered a short time; the following year, then Eggleston published its own selection of eleven photographs.
William Eggleston has won many awards. Photographs of him are in possession of many international museums and collections. His 1976 published selection William Eggleston 's Guide, he describes 2007 as his main band, which also biographical references are included.