Customer Reviews

Bill's artful snapshots - By: Robin Benson, 08 Apr 2003

William Eggleston's photos grow on you. Look through this book for the first time & the contents seem a bit like ordinary snapshots but look again & then again & with each viewing the images become more familiar (still with something fresh to discover each time) but now they start to blend together seamlessly. One reason for this, I think, is that the photos capture the everyday & the ordinary. Taken around Eggleston's hometown of Memphis &in the Deep South, they show some of his relations, street scenes, interiors, buildings & more, though the captions only state the locations. John Szarkowski saysin the books introduction "..today's most radical & suggestive colour photography derives much of its vigor from commonplace models" This capturing of the everyday &in colour divided the criticsin 1976 when the Museum of Modern Art used seventy-five of Egglestons's images for their first exhibition of colour photography. The 'Guide' unfortunately only shows forty-eight from the show.

Art photography until this exhibition wasin black & white & had been for years, colour photos were mostly for ads, commercial print & snapshots. Thankfully the Museum's curator of photography, Szarkowski, had the good sense to allow the public to see something new & fresh. I think the 'Guide' is a good introduction to Eggleston & if you like his creative vision, as I do, have a look at these two books of his work:The Democratic Forest & Ancient & Modern. Both are full of wonderful colour photos of the American everyday.