EGGLESTON

I stumbled across Eggleston's Work when watch I watch a programme called ' Imagine....The Colourful Mr Eggleston.' He is described as one of the great characters in Contemporary photography.

His subject matter is biennial and everyday. Much of his work is described as 'the gap between anything else,' or as 'photographing nothing,' although he described it as 'photographing democratically.' He only ever takes one photo of anything so that he does not get confused as to which is the better photo, and his photographs are seen as loose and organic.

Eggleston received his first camera at the age of 18, and from then on pretty much taught himself photography with some help from literature by company's such as Kodak. He has always printed his images himself and was influenced by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Despite the fact he spent 6 years at Various Colleges studying art, he never graduated.

In the mid 1960's he change the course of his career and photography itself by doing the 1st role of colour film. It was radical in this day and age and took people along time to understand and appreciate it.

On one occasion he was asked to photograph a wedding and instead of doing the usual photographs of the the bride and groom he was going around taking photos of the ash trays. When he presented the photos they where all of the sky.

He was also responsible for bringing dye transfer Photographers (which has an incredible saturation of colours that never fade) into the art world. Before him this type of photography was only used commercially, especially in the fashion industry.

It was in the early 70's where Eggleston and Andy Warhol got together where Warhol introduced Eggleston to film, and where Eggleston had a long affair with Viva one of Warhol's very successful factory girls.

Despite his strange personal life having a wife and children and then a mistress both of which knew about the other one, he has been one of the most successful photographers introducing a new element into Photography.

I have found his work very interesting as he seemed to do what he wanted, he was the first photographer of his generation to do this and not take photographs of the usual things, but the things people had forgotten about or not even noticed.