This is William Eggleston. Say something nice about him. [EXIF

I like him
He said once that he try's to take one photo of a particular scene, might not be smart but I like it

>>3143458
>might not be smart
its not dumb either. only time a photog needs to spray a scene is when hes getting paid so he needs to make sure hes "getting the shot". eggleston aint outside trying to get the shot, hes just snapping cool stuff he finds.

literally the best togger of the 20th cntury

Comfiest dude ever
He came from a long line of rich folk and he didn't have to do shit for money, so he just spent his time taking snaps
The father of aesthetics

I like his shots and general concept.
Listened to his music yesterday for the first time, also interesting.

god tier photographer
all of his shots just work, everything's arranged perfectly within the frame

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He has some good stuff, but for the love of god, how are photos like these not considered snapshots? I would bet my life that if I did something like that I'd get BTFO'd.

Please teach me what is so amazing about a composition, colors, textures or anything else that might be the reason of greatness of an image like this (not trying to shitpost, I'm a beginner at this and really want to understand).

>>3143493
I just want to know what the FUCK is in that clear bottle in the middle.

>>3143497

Vinegar with peppers in it. Common in the South.

>>3143493
"The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning."

If you have someone with a really good photographic eye--e.g., John Szarkowski--look through all of his shitty photos, he can pick out a few good ones that Eggleston took by accident without realizing what he was doing.

>>3143500
This is exactly something you'd expect to be said by someone who doesn't understand the difference between a good photo and a shitty snapshot, and who photographs accordingly.

>>3143503
>art is dictated by the critics
gross

>>3143505
Szarkowski wasn't a critic. He was a curator. He was also a champion of Eggleston's work and gave him his first big museum show.

Looking through Szarkowski's work, I have come to the conclusion that he did it either as a joke or to show the art world that a good art curator can take even the shittiest hobbiest snapshooter and make him a star.

>>3143493
my bro, see the picture just in its thumbnail form. it has a center cluster of vivid colors, and then some beige/gray space surrounding it. objects are all round and tubular, table is plaid, which enhances the color/shape contrast. not a masterpiece by any means, but not unthought either, also he picked up 35 more of the same and he made a body of work. a single silver spoon photo might be a snap, but typology study on a variety of spoons is enough to be configure a set and to comunicate an idea beyond "this is a spoon photo".

>>3143493
As I see it there are two kinds of photographers. Those who put a lot of work into one single image and those who make their images work in a series and release them in books. Those images are not really made to be viewed on their own so out of context they can look unimpressive.

>>3143504
You know that's a quote by Eggleston? Let us know when we can see your shit at MoMA.

>>3143510
>I have come to the conclusion […]
Nobody gives a fuck about your opinion. Fact is that he got a solo exhibition at MoMA.

>>3143512
> Those who put a lot of work into one single image

Eggleston is not one of these. He's said he takes one shot of any given scene without much in the way of setup or considering the alternate angles available and then just moves on.

> and those who make their images work in a series and release them in books

Eggleston is not one of these. If you go to the Eggleston Trust website and look through his portfolios, or pick up one of his books, his photos don't work as a coherent series. There's no unifying theme other than "Here's some shit William Eggleston saw at some point". They look just as unimpressive out of context as they do in context.

> As I see it there are two kinds of photographers

There is a third: The kind of photographer who doesn't actually understand photography or what makes a photograph good, but who thinks they do because they got a lot of attention early in their career, and who other people who don't understand photography think is good because they don't understand photography either.

>>3143526
>his photos don't work as a coherent series
>I have credibility so people will agree with me

Lol confirmed tard, people genuinely like his books and personally his books are some of the best of all time. Los Alamos is like your premier example of a photo book. Nigger

stop sucking old photogs' dicks
it time to appreciate photogs of current era

>>3143565
go on...

>>3143565
like who?

>>3143594
Isi

>>3143554
Hey, man. I have tried to like Eggleston. I've looked at his work online. I've looked at his work in books. I've looked at his work printed large in galleries. All I see, no matter what, is the same sorts of shitty images I see in "I just got my first camera! A Digital Rebel T13i! Here are some shots from my walk to high school" thread here on /p/.

I really gave him a chance. He's the only famous photographer whose work I look at and feel this way. Every other photographer who's made it big, I can see and appreciate the thought they put into their compositions. Eggleston? It looks like he sees something he thinks looks cool, takes one shot of it, and moves on without even making a small effort to see if there's a better shot to be had of it.

Which is EXACTLY HOW HE HAS STATED HE WORKS. He never works the scene, just takes one snapshot and moves on. His photos display no talent for composition that I can see. Despite being hailed as a master of color photography, his photos don't seem to show any real clever use of color.

I spent years thinking there was something wrong with me for not "getting" Eggleston. To the point that I actually started looking into more on John Szarkowski, the guy who discovered him. Know what I discovered?

1. Szarkowski has an amazing eye for photography.
2. Szarkowski has an amazing sense of humor.

Like I read a monograph of his photos combined with letters he'd written, and his photos were great and his writing is great. So I developed a theory: Szarkowski discovered Eggleston as a joke. And then it got out of hand and he was never able to come clean before he died.

>>3143707
Like, let's look through the subset of Los Alamos that's on his website: http://www.egglestontrust.com/los_alamos_port.html

>Memorial statue taken with flash
Are you fucking kidding me? This is just a shitty photo. Like, I can almost see how it would be cool to have the almost monochromatic nature of the monument and black background contrasting with the red flowers, but there's no indication that this was his thought process in taking this photo. The composition and slight angle of the subject just looks careless, not planned. And there's an extra distracting cross in the background. It's just sloppy.

>Sunset over a parking lot
How many times have you had friend who know you're into photography show you this picture they took of a cool sunset on their cellphone with a parking lot as the foreground? How many times have you nodded and smiled politely and thought "Okay, yeah, this is actually a shitty photo, but I'm too polite to tell them." This is exactly that photo, just taken before the days of cameraphones.

>Some flowers on and in a car
So, okay, if you're going for using color as your composition, you need to try to cut out distracting elements. This might have been cool with the blue sky on top and the cream-colored car and wall on bottom with the green/blue flowers uniting the two halves. Throw in the telephone pole, the bit of red flowers on the left, the pile of flowers inside the car, and the random colors/patterns from the pillows on top of the car, though, and it just looks sloppy. So let's look at the picture again and try to see what was really going on. Eggleston saw some flowers sitting on a car, so he put that dead center in his frame and snapped a picture and moved on. Any other thought you put into this picture is more than Eggleston did. Flowers, centered in the frame. That's what he photographed.

>>3143710
(ctd)
>Dude eating food in front of a diner
Best one of the set so far. But the vast majority of its appeal comes from the retro nature of the scene. Imagine if the dude weren't wearing a suit and he were just sitting in front of a McDonald's instead of whatever this neat old diner was. Shitty picture, right? I feel like a lot of his "enduring" fame comes from that--"this looks retro, therefore it's a cool picture." It's telling that, at the time of his first actual MOMA show, about half of the critics had the same "What the fuck is this? This guy can't take pictures worth a damn" reaction that I have.

>Bottle of soda on an old car
Boring subject, composed boringly in the dead center of the frame, distracting elements all around. Again.

>kid pushing carts
This is legitimately a good shot. If there was any sense of connection with the rest of the portfolio, or if all of his shots were of this caliber, I would be inclined to think it wasn't good by accident.

>Two thirds of a woman
I honestly think that he *literally* took this by accident. Like hit the shutter button while trying to put his camera away or something. And not in a "This is accidentally a good shot" way, but in a "This is accidental, and it looks it, and it's crap" way.

>Signs nailed to a tree
The only useful purpose for this photo would be if you wanted to prove that you earned the $7.25/hour that you were being paid to hang up Kelly's signs. Or if you wanted to remember when and where the Lagniappe fair was being held. There doesn't even seem to be an attempt at composition here. Like, look, there's a subject (the tree) and the shot has some nice leading lines (the road) that take you... nowhere.

>>3143715
(ctd)

>Dolls on a car
"Hey, that looks weird. I'll take a picture of it". I look at this and I definitely see that there is a good picture that could be taken of this subject. I'd have gotten lower, used a wider angle lens if I had one. Tried to center the car logos and had the natural lines of the hood guide the viewer's eyes back to the background dolls. Maybe a lower angle so the frontmost doll towers over the scene (and, added bonus, maybe get those background power cables out of the shot).

>rusty metal bars
I have taken this shot hundreds of times. I've never shown it to anyone because I know it's not actually an interesting shot. Eggleston not only shows it to people, not only puts it in his portfolio, but puts it in the subset of the portfolio shown on the website to show you how amazing the full portfolio is.

>Light coming through a cup in an airplane
Again, we've all taken this picture. It's an obvious picture. There's a refrain with modern art in general where people are all "Pfft. I could have made that", to which the obvious response is "Yeah, but you didn't." With Eggleston, no, everyone *has* taken these shots, and a big part of what separates good photographers from shitty ones is learning which if these shots should never see the light of day.

>A car chained to a post
The only art here is thanks to the designer of that car. He put the cool little swoopies on the back and contrasted the red lights with the teal paint. He added the chrome to the bumper. Eggleston just took a shitty picture of it chained to a post with some garbage lying on the ground.

>>3143717
They're subtle and refined. I guess thick morons like you don't find a photo "creative" if it doesn't punch them in the face.

>>3143717
(ctd)
>A woman in front of a colorful wall
The woman's angry expression could've been a good picture. Eggleston had to get that big colorful wall in the shot, though, because otherwise how could he jerk himself off to the notion that he was the world's best color photographer? Of course, he's not responsible for that wall. He's not even responsible for seeing the beauty in the wall that the creator didn't intend. The creator of the wall created it to be cool and colorful like that. Eggleston just took a picture of it. I think there's a decent chance he didn't even notice the wall, he just was taking a picture of the woman and his compositional style (focus on the thing dead center without giving a fractional fuck's worth of thought to the idea of composition) meant that there was a lot of room above the woman's head. Like, how many shitty "Street photography" threads have you see here on /p/ with shots just like this one?

>Cotton candy
Again, there's a cool picture to be had here. It's not this one. But he took his one first-attempt, so that means he absolutely must move on and not try to get a better picture of the scene.

>A picture of a cloud
My girlfriend's mom texted her a picture just like this today. Nobody's offering to hang it on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art.

>Women with beehives and cigarettes
This picture is phenomenal. Take this picture, the picture of the dude pushing carts, and maybe the picture of the guy eating a burger, and throw the rest the FUCK away. And next time, try not to shoot the women at that slight angle. Or maybe rotate slightly when you print. so the line of the booth is level.

>black family standing by a car
Yeah, I take pictures of other people getting their picture taken, too. I don't bother showing anyone those photos.

~Fin~

>>3143719
> They're subtle and refined

They're not refined.

"Refined" implies that you, you know, refine your technique. Take a bunch of pictures of the same thing to find what the best picture of that thing is that you can take. Look at your previous pictures and determine what is and isn't a good shot. I see no evidence that Eggleston has ever done any of this. All of his portfolios just look exactly as subtle and exactly as refined as any thread of first-day DSLR photos on here.

Like, I can see right through the photo to the thought process behind it. They're entirely transparent to anyone who's spent a significant amount of time trying to help out beginning photographers. These photos look exactly like what you'd expect to see if you took one of those beginning photographers and told him he was a genius and should keep doing exactly what he's doing. Especially the photographer started out as the pampered heir to a wealthy plantation family, so he was naturally inclined to assume he was exceptional without having to do any work whatsoever.

People try to explain it as he made mundane subjects look interesting... except he doesn't; the shots look really mundane to the casual glance.

So they try to explain that there's deep knowledge of color theory at work... except again, no, not really. "There are colors in the photo" is not the same as composing the shots with colors in mind.

You can't even say that he puts a lot of thought into his composition because he has stated, unequivocally and unapologetically, that he does not. And people keep calling him a genius, so he'll never get better.

Fuck, I'm listening to his newly-released music single as I write this, and it sounds nearly as bad as the stuff I've been playing on the keytar I picked up at Goodwill the other day.

>>3143493
He's "historically important" in a way he changed way of looking at color. That's about it. His photos are important only in context, without it they are snapshits.

>>3143452
his pictures aren't terrible.

>>3143722
He doesn't need to put a lot of thought into compositions. What's the fucking obsession with process these days?

Just because he didn't struggle doing them doesn't make them bad. In fact, it makes them even better for me, thinking they just came up natural to him, instead of through some convoluted shitty process some hipster today would find creative.

>>3143707
>>3143710
>>3143715
>>3143717
>>3143721
>judging based on the subject only
How does it feel to be so plebeian?

Eggleston's photos are supposed to have boring subjects. What's interesting is his choice of arranging arranging this boringness into something that's pleasing to the eye and makes you step back and think about how something so ordinary could be so beautiful. He represents things, not presents them

>>3143732
> What's interesting is his choice of arranging arranging this boringness into something that's pleasing to the eye

Except they're also not pleasing to the eye.

>>3143729
> He doesn't need to put a lot of thought into compositions

What makes a good photo in your opinion?

For me, you can have a good photo if your photo has a good subject. OR you can have a good photo if your photo has a good composition. OR you can have a good photo if your photo tells a good story (which is kind of a subset of "good subject", but not totally). Ideally, you'd want to have all three.

Eggleston's subjects are deliberately boring.

Eggleston's compositions are amateurish at best.

Eggleston's photos don't tell a story other than "Well, this was a thing I saw one day and I took a photo of it."

There are definitely photographers out there who I don't like, but I understand. Like Crewdson, for example. Most of his photos, I find kind of boring, but knowing the sheer amount of work that goes into them make them interesting to me. Also Cindy Sherman--if I look at her untitled film stills, I get bored about three shots in, but I recognize the concept and the artistry behind it and I can appreciate it on that level. I look at Eggleston's work and I don't see any thought put into it whatsoever, and I don't see any magic coming out despite the lack of thought. I see exactly the sort of work I'd expect to see from someone who never learned the difference between "A good photo" and "A photo that's in focus and properly exposed".

>>3143744
>Except they're also not pleasing to the eye.

I should qualify this--they're not pleasing to MY eye. Obviously other people have different tastes.

>>3143746
I heard about Egglestone for the first time today and I have to agree with your posts. Really interested in hearing the other side, though.

>>3143748
> Really interested in hearing the other side, though.

The other side seems to be "He's a genius. He just uses color really well. You just don't get it."

Which is exactly what you'd expect in an emperor-has-no-clothes situation. Like I honestly feel like I'm being pranked every time his name comes up as a photographer of note.

>>3143744
>>3143746
Pleasing to the eye in the sense that the elements are arranged in what is probably the best way possible for what it is. The elements themselves obviously aren't pleasing, and that's entirely the point. There's a juxtaposition between what is shown and how it's shown, and signifies the difference between the two ideas

>>3143763
> Pleasing to the eye in the sense that the elements are arranged in what is probably the best way possible for what it is.
Yes, I understand the concept of artistic composition. I understand the idea of shooting a mundane (or even ugly) object and making the photo look good through good composition, good use of space, good use of color, good lighting, etc.

However, I see no evidence of that in Eggleston's work. Compositionally, his pictures look very much like he's trying to take pictures of definite subjects and not paying any attention whatsoever to composition. E.g., in most of his photos, there is one obvious main subject and it's dead center in frame and the composition as a whole is a jumbled mess.

If you think his work is compositionally good, then you're bringing that with you to looking at the photos. Do what I did--pick a portfolio, and actually analyze each of the shots and tell us what you like about the way the elements are arranged in the photo. And while you're doing so, imagine if you were looking at the photos as a thread from someone on /p/ trying out saturated film for the first time and really ask yourself if the reaction you're giving Eggleston is the same reaction you'd give seeing those photo not attached to his name. I just feel like people are coming at him with the idea "Eggleston was great at photography, so I will stare at this photo until I see something great in it".

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>>3143452
This is my phone wallpaper

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pure kino.

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If you haven't seen his original prints then you haven't seen his photos at all desu.

His dye transfer prints are what make him famous and set his 'color' apart from others in the era.

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>>3143748
>Really interested in hearing the other side, though.

I can appreciate the concept of a unique perspective and heightened awareness in general. Even if not every Eggleston photograph is a shining example of this I still appreciate the concept overall. Same thing with people like Stephen Shore. You get this sense that they were "looking" and "seeing" potentially interesting frames in a world people took for granted, rather than simply seeking out incredibly rare or interesting things where the subject is the only point to the photo.

I won't rail on people for not liking this sort of thing, but personally that's what draws me to Eggleston's images, at least a good number of them. Fortunately photography is a very demographic process and you can photograph whatever you please. Endless freedom.

I actually find his photos pleasing to look at - some of them.

However, the resemblance they bear to many of the total rookie shots we see on p is uncanny. The typical response would range from
"what did you think you were taking a picture of"
to
"sell your camera and kill yourself."

Just because this guy made it in the art world doesn't make him a good photographer. It should go without saying that contemporary art is essentially a money laundering operation. Value is secondary.

It's not that he had no talent whatsoever, but i my eyes he certainly doesn't deserve many accolades.

"The normality of these subjects is deceptive, for behind the images there is a sense of lurking danger."

Nigga please. Take a look at Alex Colvilles paintings. He actually understood and created a sense of oncoming terror.

>>3143837
>His dye transfer prints are what make him famous and set his 'color' apart from others in the era.

If your photos only look good with one specific print style, you're not a good photographer. Ansel Adams prints done by the man himself on silver look fucking *phenomenal*, but looking at a shitty reproduction on cheap paper in a bargain-bin remaindered book and they're still recognizable as really good photographs.

And I have seen some of his original prints. For example, I was in the basement of the Art Institute of Chicago a few years back and saw a shitty, poorly-composed, boring shot of the inside of an oven and I said to myself "Self, I bet that's a photo by fucking Eggleston" and it *goddamn was*.

>>3143840
>I can appreciate the concept of a unique perspective and heightened awareness in general.

I get that, but he's seeing potentially interesting frames in a world people took for granted and then just not getting very good photographs of them.

And he's not getting very good photographs of them because he doesn't TRY to. He only takes one frame. He takes one frame of each subject, then moves on. The implication is he's been doing that his whole career. If you shoot like that, you're just guaranteed not to get the best shots because you don't get that feel of what does work and what doesn't work--he just gets that one shot, and it is by default the best shot he could've gotten there because it's the only one he got. Every time I look at one of his photos, I see a dozen better compositions he could've gone with if he'd just learn to goddamn take pictures.

If you told me that each of his portfolios was just every photograph straight out of his camera from a given time period with no curation or culling of bad shots, I would believe it.

"The Colourful Mr. Eggleston" documentary from the BBC goes into some depth on his process. You can actually see him shoot. You can actually hear him talk about his process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jZ_HkaTXh8

>>3143885
>I do have a personal discipline of only taking one picture of one thing. Not two. I would take more than one and get so confused later when I was trying to figure out which was the best frame, so I said "this is ridiculous, I'm just gonna take one; that's gonna be it
-- William Eggleston (~5:45 into the documentary)

The way you become a good photographer is to take a bunch of photos and LEARN TO RECOGNIZE WHICH IS THE BEST OF THE SET. Like, if he took so many photos early in his career that he got to a point where he could just previsualize and know what the best framing of a scene would be, that would be one thing. But he, by his own admission, can't tell which is a better photograph given two of his own shitty photographs of a given object. This is not the mark of a genius photographer, this is the mark of a rank amateur beginner who doesn't know what he's doing.

If you think you see

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>>3143885
>On an evening, he and his wife and I, the three of us were lying in this big bed, talking, and I had my, that, camera, and I had a flash. I looked up and took the picture. Then we continued talking.
-- William Eggleston (~26:46 into the documentary) on the subject of his most famous photograph.

Basically saying, he didn't really put any thought into it. He just looked up at a red ceiling and took a picture of it. A lot of people talk about the genius of having those kama sutra prints right there at the edge to draw the eye, but it could be equally well explained by saying "Oh, yeah, he thought the light bulb looked cool, so he focused on that dead center in the frame. Everything else was pretty much accidental."

>>3143892
A few minutes later (27:55 or so), second dude is talking about how the photograph is great because it's the site of a murder and the red is evocative of that. Which is bullshit, because the murder happened after the photo was taken. So unless Eggleston is secretly a serial killer (which, I mean, okay, wealthy dilettante with a penchant for collecting a lot of guns, so I can see that) and did the murder himself and was deliberately foreshadowing that with his photo, that's bullshit.

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>>3143885
>It took, if you like, Szarkowski's brilliance as a curator to find these pictures. You know, Eggleston's a very prolific shooter--or he was then. He'd have had thousands of pictures, and Bill himself probably had very little idea which his best pictures were. He needed, if you like, that someone to knock the thing into shape, make it tight, and make it work.
--Martin Parr (~37:05 in the documentary)

(Parr, incidentally, is a damn good photographer)

This is really the crux of my argument about Eggleston. The so-called genius of Eggleston was really the brilliance of Szarkowski as a photo editor/curator. Like, Szarkowski was a brilliant man, and wanted to show that even the shittiest photographer could look good if you had a good curator to go through them and pick out the good shots they accidentally got.

All of you talking about Eggleston's genius in being able to spot those hidden gems in a world full of shit and saying how he has the magical ability to get the absolute best, most perfect composition while only taking one and only one photo of each scene are ignoring the fact that BY HIS OWN ADMISSION and BY ALL ACCOUNTS FROM HIS PEERS, he has no fucking clue which of his photos are good and which are shit. He can't tell the difference between a good photo and a bad photo. He doesn't recognize what makes a photo good or bad. He just takes one shot and moves on, and most of the shots are shit, and he doesn't know why and he doesn't even realize they're shit because he has no idea what he's doing.

You can teach a monkey to hit a shutter button. 99% of the time, the photos will be worthless. If you have someone who knows what they're doing go through and look at them, though, every once in a while, you'll pull out a shot like [pic related]. Does that mean the monkey knows what he's doing and is a photographic genius? No, it just means that curation is just as important a skill for a photographer as knowing how to operate a camera.

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Eggleston is america's postmodern matisse

Documentary 2: William Eggleston in the Real World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq3N2KWAttU

>>3143905
>Ansel Adams wrote Szarkowski a letter expressing dismay that the stuff was hanging on the museum's walls
@12:07

Honestly, I'll take Ansel Fucking Adams being on my side over the entirety of 4chan.org/p/ being against me. One of them is pretty much universally regarded as a genius in the world of photography, the other is a board with 20 threads a day where people are still arguing, in 2017, whether film or digital is better.

For the people who think my anti-Eggleston feelings are just "He takes photos of boring subjects", here are a couple of other photographers who take photos of boring subject, but the photos they take are CONSISTENTLY GOOD PHOTOS:

* Alec Soth: http://alecsoth.com/photography
* Stephen Shore: http://stephenshore.net/photographs.php?menu=photographs

>>3143905
>The photographs in "Eggleston's Guide" are, to some extent, more refined and restrained than Eggleston's work before or after.
@18:16

Because those photos were curated by John Szarkowski, who actually knew what a good photograph looks like, rather than Eggleston Himself, who has no eye for composition.

>>3143710
yeah, you clearly don't get it
which photographers do you like?

I don't get the idea of he's a good photographer because other photographers say so even if most people don't enjoy the images.
Art is suppose to be enjoyed.
I don't care how technically proficient you are, if your photo isnt nice or thought provoking to look at, it's just a photo.

>>3143922
Alec Soth, Stephen Shore, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Vivian Maier, Martin Parr, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, John Szarkowski, Richard Kern, Ryan McGinley, Diane Arbus. The list goes on and on.

I love photography in general, and it's rare for there to be a noteworthy photographer whose work I don't like, and rarer still for there to be a noteworthy photographer who I genuinely think is a bad photographer. Pretty much just Eggleston.

>>3143905
>Q: In terms of the composition, what time do you devote in preparation? Does it vary?
>A: To tell the truth, these are composed in an instant. And easily, if more than an instant--I mean really, less than part of second--goes by, I won't take the picture.
@1:00:30

Eggleston, proudly proclaiming that he spends zero time and puts zero thought into his compositions.

>>3143905
>Q: I feel like you're taking the picture as your eyes see it, from the moment you see it. Do you, when you see something, maybe step away from it, get closer, or reframe from the time you've seen it?
>A: It's true, I really do not ever step away or reframe.
>Q: You take it from where you are when you see it?
>A: That's right, I go ahead and take it, and really don't think about it anymore because another picture will come around.
@1:02:00

Eggleston, again explaining that he puts fuck-all thought into the composition or framing of his photos. If you've been arguing that he's a master of composition in this thread, Eggleston himself is telling you that that's 100% false.

>>3143918
>Q: I was wondering if you could talk about your editing process a little bit, when you're looking at your contact sheets
>A: Well, I don't have contact sheets. I use, really, everything.
@1:03:02

Eggleston, confirming that he doesn't curate his photos at all and just straight up uses every single picture that comes out of his camera.

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lmao why are you being such an autist about this?

there are many routes to a good picture. the only thing that matters is the picture in the end (and most of the art world agrees that they are good pictures)

he's also being overly cavalier about his process (and considering the generation of artists he was part of that shouldnt be a surprise)

and lol - you like stephen shore and hate eggleston? they're basically doing the exact same thing but going about it differently. eggleston is just a more suburban shore

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This thread inspired me to take my own photos. I've been reading this thread in my bad and, just like Egglestone, I took my phone and, without reframing, took a picture of the corner of my room before me. The clock at the bottom right symbolises a time slipping by. The colours are clean and minimalistic and the corner is THE place where the shine of light white colour stops spreading, and the darkness of the purple takes the rest of the room.

It is actually a look into my own self and explains how there was something in me that just blocked my light shining through and pulled me into a deep depression.

I've taken a photo with my phone instead of a camera to inspire future generations that not everything is about a gear and that you can still make art with the most basic of an equipment.

I'd like one MoMA, please.

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>>3143959
submit it to your nearest gallery and see how you go

>>3143950
>lmao why are you being such an autist about this?

I dunno, man. I guess I've just decided this is the hill I'm willing to die on. I've probably spent more time researching Eggleston and looking at Eggleston's photos and really doing a deep-dive into Eggleston's body of work than any photographer I actually like.

At this point, it's clearly self destructive. I was up until like 4:00am watching goddamn youtube videos of the guy working.

> you like stephen shore and hate eggleston? they're basically doing the exact same thing

They're not! That's my point! All of the pro-Eggleston arguments that everyone always gives (e.g., the whole "It's not about the subject. The subject is deliberately banal and dull. It's about the overall composition and colors in the shot" thing) ACTUALLY APPLY to Shore's photography. The difference between a photographer who shoots boring subjects but really knows at a deep level what he's doing vs. a photographer who has no fucking clue how to take a good photo just shines through clear as day to me.

I'm convinced that people who think they like Eggleston really just like how dye-transfer prints look and are confusing that for good photography.

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>>3143899
>(Parr, incidentally, is a damn good photographer)

I am not going to argue with this but this just makes my head hurt.

So you rant about Eggleston for taking snapshots yet you praise Parr whose photographs mostly look like someone's travel photographs?

>>3144028
> So you rant about Eggleston for taking snapshots yet you praise Parr whose photographs mostly look like someone's travel photographs?

Again, it's the difference between boring subjects shot by a photographer who really knows what he's doing and boring subjects shot by a photographer who legitimately doesn't understand the difference between a good photograph and a bad one.

>>3143926
>Vivian Maier

>>3143959
ur very bad with satire, plebbo.

>>3143885
>>3143886
>>3143892
>>3143893
>>3143899
>>3143905
>>3143908
>>3143914
>>3143918
very autistic, but also very uninformed. all photogs use an external editor, be it for their photobooks or for assembling their series. parr fucking murdered rinko kawauchis style with his retarded suggestions. a bad editor can break a good photog too.

>>3144056
> very autistic, but also very uninformed. all photogs use an external editor
You lack reading comprehension.

My point is not "Eggleston is bad because he let someone else curate his collection."

My point is not "Eggleston only seems as good as he is because he let someone else curate his collection".

My point is "Eggleston has absolutely no idea what the difference is between a good photo and a bad photo, and literally the only artistic skill that went into his portfolio and made him a star came from John Szarkowski. Szarkowski could have gotten the same level of quality out of trolling through Google Street View if it had been a thing at the time, or by buying bunches of family snapshots at yard sales and building a show out of them. Eggleston is a monkey with a camera."

And I think that that was secretly the point Szarkowski was trying to make. I would not be at all surprised to learn that he had a five-dollar bet with some other museum curator that he could find the biggest turd in New York and polish it into a legit MOMA show.

>>3144020
>I dunno, man. I guess I've just decided this is the hill I'm willing to die on.
You've decided that there should be some line of what is valuable (artistically) and what is not. That's not autism, that's called drawing a line. Most people draw their own lines, some people try to make it so that such demarcation does not exist.

I personally agree with you.

If you check out Freeman Patterson, you'll see a dude who did a LOT of shooting just in his backyard. He actually understood form, composition and colour.

>>3143926
this is the /p/ equivalent of dad rock posters on youtube

>vivian maier

kek

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>>3144020
>I've probably spent more time researching Eggleston and looking at Eggleston's photos and really doing a deep-dive into Eggleston's body of work than any photographer I actually like.

Kk fair enough, i don't really know anything about his process desu

But the pictures themselves - purely on a technical level - are the work of a professional

Show me someone here (or elsewhere) with the kind of colour harmonies he had. He is up there with Rothko and Matisse. Even if someone else is doing his curating, he is recognizing and figuring in colour in his shots before he takes them

His use of line and shape is also first-rate

I think >>3143900 is pretty much on the money

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>>3144272

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>>3144274

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>>3144272

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>>3144272

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>>3144272
>tfw you became a eggleston shill in the space of 2hrs

>boring subject
>literally
>real clever use of color
>real clever
>literally
>cellphone
>portfolio
>shots
>caliber
>literally
>subject
>I have taken this shot hundreds of times
>literally
>his portfolio
>website
>obvious picture
>obvious
>literally

goddamn schizoid fuck

>>3144339
what did he mean by this?

>>3144280
Literally anyone else posted this and it would be
>reeee you cut her foot off kill yourself

>>3144272
>But the pictures themselves - purely on a technical level - are the work of a professional

Inasmuch as he is able to get things in focus and exposed correctly, I guess.

> Show me someone here (or elsewhere) with the kind of colour harmonies he had

I honestly don't see any particularly harmonious color in his work. I really think this is a case of people being told he's a master of color and so bringing that preconception along with them to color (so to speak) their viewing of his photos. E.g., let's look at the shots you posted based purely on their colors and composition.

>>3144272 [Pool shot]
You've got the blue and the green. I'll agree, those are nice and harmonious! Throw in the yellow spots of the chairs and it's even better! Even the blue chairs work well, 'cause they go with the blue of the pool! I'm with you so far on that part of the frame.

Then you've got a big cream stripe down one side that adds nothing, the vast expanse of black asphalt that adds nothing, and the cars that don't really add anything. Overall, it gives the impression not of a man trying to get a scene with bold use of color, but of a man trying to take a creep shot of the MILF in the lawn chair from his hotel window without a telephoto.

>>3144274 [Picnic table]
This one has potential. You've got the blue/green connection with the table and the astroturf, and the nice connection of the table's curve leading into the astroturf curve. But then you've got that strip of red in the background (and the cup on the ground) that distract from those without adding anything, plus the dark triangle on the right and the reflection of the sign in the glossy surface of the table. There's potentially a good shot in this scene, but Eggleston failed to take the time to look for it.

>>3144356
(ctd)
>>3144276 [car hoods and trees]
You can say the colors are harmonious if they deliberately go together (Blue sky/green trees/blue car) or if they deliberately contrast (Blue sky/red car/blue car). If they do both, and you throw in some yellow reflections, you've just got a jumbled mess.

>>3144277 [Green reflection on wet ground]
There's not really any color harmony here. There's only one color (green) against black. If he'd framed out the little splotch of garbage in the upper left and hadn't added in the blurry walking legs in a failed nod to HCB, this photo could have risen to the level of mediocre and boring instead of outright bad.

>>3144278 [McDonalds & Foto Hut]
This one actually displays some harmonious color. The Red/yellow of the McDonalds with the Yellow/Red of the Foto Hut combined with the red cars work and even the little fallout shelter sign, they all work together. The dude in the green shirt does not. Eggleston, again, misinterprets HCB's "The Decisive Moment" philosophy to mean "Wait until someone's walking through the frame". Maybe if he'd waited until someone wearing red or yellow walked through, it'd be a really good shot. But, of course, Eggleston would never wait for a decisive moment--something catches his eye, he takes a picture, he moves on, never bothering to refine his individual shots or his technique as a whole.

>>3144280 [Woman sitting on a curb]
No interesting use of color here. Just a portrait attempt by a rank amateur. Her face is dead center in the frame, where he focused, and the entire rest of the frame is distracting elements and empty space, with her foot cut off at the bottom.

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>>3144272
> colour harmonies

And finally, I think it's instructive to look at his work from before he switched to color. In black and white, his subjects and compositions are EXACTLY THE SAME as they are in his color work. This is not the work of a man who is a master of color. This is not the work of a man who is a master of composition. This is the work of a man who just points a camera randomly with no understanding of what he's doing.

If you look at Rothko's work, you see a very limited color pallette for each painting. The colors are designed to work together, the visual weights everything is given are carefully considered. You don't get that with Eggleston's work--you just get a jumbled mess of colors that sometimes work together by sheer chance. Matisse is at the other end of the spectrum from Rothko in terms of palette, using all sorts of colors together but still in a way that they all work together. Eggleston is somewhere in the middle, his photos using neither the sufficiently limited color palette to match the pure-color-composition style of Rothko nor the bold, vibrant color explosion of Matisse.

Basically, I don't think you like Eggleston. I think you like the saturated look of the dye transfer printing process and are confusing that for "color harmonies".

>>3144356
IMO it's the only one posted in the set that was conceptually interesting to me is >>3144272
I get an impression of an oasis here with the bleak flat hot asphalt and the dreamy green and blue pool. I like that juxtaposition. I agree the framing is not great though.
The rest are mediocre.. Re-framing a lot of these would have significantly improved them.

>>3144371
>I get an impression of an oasis here with the bleak flat hot asphalt and the dreamy green and blue pool
Right? It's SO CLOSE to being a good photo, then not. If he'd bothered to really consider the scene and frame it well, he could have gotten BOTH the "Oasis in an asphalt desert" feel AND actual good use of color. As it is, it's just a jumbled mess of a vacation snap.

> Re-framing a lot of these would have significantly improved them.

Which every photographer who knows what he's doing understands. You have to consider the scene, consider your composition, maybe take a few different photos from a few different angles (or at least LOOK at a few different angles) to find the best shot. Eggleston doesn't do that, and it doesn't lead to a "he breaks all the rules and gets magical photos like no one else!" situation, it just leads to his photos all looking like amateur crap with no thought or skill put into them whatsoever.

People like them because:

1. They have that retro quality of being from a bygone era. At his first show--I.e., when the photos he was taking were just the same things people saw in their day to day life--he was criticized a lot more.
2. Dye-transfer printing and the bold colors it gives you. "Saturated" is often mistaken for "Good" when it comes to color.
3. You've been told he's a genius, so you assume there's a lot more to his pictures than there is.

>>3144371
> Re-framing a lot of these would have significantly improved them.

From experience, re-framing/re-composing is not as easy as you may think. It's so easy to look at a photo and say "I could've shot that better, just taken one step to the right". But meanwhile, in the actual location, two steps to the right and you're stepping out a window over a ten story drop, or a huge tree just made its way into the frame, etc.

Doesn't mean these are "perfect", but I've shot out of windows before and it's really not as easy to pull off as you probably think.

i thik this guy is overrated
bad composition
distracting elements in background
tilted
if he is considered photographer then anyone is

>>3144048
Show me how is that red ceiling photo any different, you sheep. Red colour may be nicer, but that was not his work. He even said he just took a snap without thinking about it. And try not to be biased just because somebody told you he is a genius. Wow, big deal, find yourself surrounded by a colorful scene and take a snap and get known as a master of colours.

Nobody provided a good counter argument, people only keep repeating how his colours and lines are godly, but they obviously show no real thought behind them, which is exactly what the creator itself admitted! He does have some decent photos, but you praise even absolute shits.

>>3144593
>From experience, re-framing/re-composing is not as easy as you may think.

True. But: Eggleston doesn't even try.

If he took 15 pictures of that scene and this was the best one, so be it. In that case, personally, I'd have just thrown it away and never shown anyone, but whatever. But he didn't take 15 pictures of the scene--he took one. He took one, after giving the scene zero thought, and moved on.

>even after all these years
>people still mad at /ourguy/
truly makes you ponder.

>>3144611
How would you have framed it better?

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>>3144629
>How would you have framed it better?

Hard to say without actually having been there. I'd have to see the whole scene to really get a feel for it, but we're only stuck with the slice Eggleston took.

With only cropping at my disposal, though, I think this is a better option.

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>>3144629
Here's another option, going for "asphalt oasis" feel.

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I think some people here are too cynical. I enjoy Eggleston's photographs even though there are some that I don't find interesting. Because of his casual composition it looks like you are looking through his eyes. As someone who never lived in America, especially in the past, I find his subjects appealing. Maybe many other amateurs took photographs like these but who knows? I have not seen any books compiled with their work.

I suggest to just look at art for what it is without trying to find out if the artist deserves his fame or not, whether his work is creative or nothing new. If you see some art you don't like just move on.

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>>3144785
> I think some people here are too cynical.
Very possible.

> Because of his casual composition it looks like you are looking through his eyes.
I can see that. Doesn't make him a good photographer, though.

> As someone who never lived in America, especially in the past, I find his subjects appealing.

And I can certainly understand enjoying them on that level, but there's a difference between "This is an interesting historical record of the rural South of the 1960s" and "He is a good photographer".

> Maybe many other amateurs took photographs like these but who knows?

I know--my mother is a painter, and one of the things she likes doing for her paintings is to buy bunches of old family slides on eBay. Pic related. They're super interesting to look through and really cool from a historical perspective, but... they're not great photography. They're clearly snapshots with not a heck of a lot of thought put into them. Just as Eggleston's are.

Similarly, just look at any talentless beginner amateur photographer of today, and imagine their photos transported fifty years into the future for that retro feel. It's the same sort of stuff.

>I suggest to just look at art for what it is without trying to find out if the artist deserves his fame or not

I can understand that way of thinking, but to that end, I feel like it's important to actually determine what the art actually *is*. With Eggleston, there is no discernible artistic skill to his photography. The only artistic skill came from Szarkowski as an art curator--THAT'S the guy who should be held up as a genius, not Eggleston.

The only useful artistic lesson we can glean from Eggleston's work is: Take photos of boring shit and then sit on it for fifty years and it'll look really awesome and retro.

> If you see some art you don't like just move on.

I like arguing about shit, though.

>>3144860
>is to buy bunches of old family slides on eBay.

People sell their family photos on eBay? How bizarre.

>>3144862
I wanted to do that, get those old kodachrome slides from 50s America.
but it would be a big investment to get them imported for potentially shit photographs.

>>3144862
Right? It's a thing, though. And probably far from the most bizarre thing that people sell on eBay.

>>3144870
What the fuck? I searched for "slides" on eBay and all I find is nude photos.

>>3144356
>>3144361
>>3144364
>>3144375
Ok this'll be my last shill post hetr because i think you might be legitimately autistic

Telling you that he is a master of colour, line and shape obviously isn't going to change your mind if you don't think he is

All i can recommend is maybe deepening your appreciation for those things (and how hard they are to get right) by studying/looking at the work of visual artists who made careers out of them - rothko, albers, venetian school, klee, ellsworth kelly, milton avery, etc.

best of luck, nerd

>>3144890
Try searching for Kodachrome.

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>>3144980
>Telling you that he is a master of colour, line and shape obviously isn't going to change your mind if you don't think he is

So? Support your argument. Give examples of his work and talk about how he uses color, line, and shape masterfully in them. Everyone just says "He's a master of color!" and gestures at the red ceiling pic like it's self-evident and not a one-off lucky shot he got one night when he was stoned off his tits in a friend's sex dungeon.

Like, how does this picture show mastery of color, line, or shape? How is it distinguishable from any other picture where some idiot goes out and takes a picture of trees? He thought that shot was good enough to put in one of his portfolios, so he must think it's one of his top photos.

I do have, I think, a pretty deep appreciation for color, line, and shape, and how they work together in art in general, and how they work together in photography in particular. I have looked at a lot of work from photographers who do the same "Take a picture of mundane things and make it interesting through your composition" schtick that Eggleston claims to be doing, and I *get them*. Like, I see the compositional work in the photos. I see how they're visually pleasing. I see how other compositions would be less visually pleasing. I am visually pleased by them.

I have also seen a shit-ton of photographs by non-photographers and people who just got their first camera who go "Huh, that thing looks neat, I'll take a photo of it". Eggleston's work displays all of the characteristics of the non-photographers, not the skilled photographers.

And you'd expect, if he was a skilled photographer and I just wasn't getting it, that there would be a lot of thoughtfulness and care that goes into each of his photographs. Like, you'd expect him to either try out a bunch of different compositions, or at least study the scene for a while to find the best framing. But, by his own admission, he doesn't do either of those things.

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>>3145022
(ctd)
If he can't tell, between two pictures he took of a given scene, which one is better, that means that he can't tell, when taking a picture, what composition will work better. That tells you he doesn't understand composition. He doesn't understand line, he doesn't understand shape, and he doesn't understand color, because he can't tell, given two photographs of the same scene, which have better use of line, shape, and color.

This is not speculation based on his work. This is by his own admission. He doesn't know what a good photograph looks like. He thinks all of his photographs are good, because people tell him he's a photographic master, so he makes prints of every photograph he takes and assumes that they're all good.

He took a blurry picture of a dog and thought that was portfolio-worthy photography. He put that in the same portfolio as a picture of a gas station, a pile of garbage, the inside of a freezer, and some puddles, because he thought they were thematically related.

And I'm not alone in these thoughts. Most of the critics of his first exhibition at MOMA thought the same thing. Prominent photographers of the day thought the same thing. It's only after years of people implying that people who don't "get it" don't understand art that have given him the cachet he has. People think he's supposed to be a genius, so they stare at his photos until they come up with some convoluted explanation for how there's hidden genius in every one of them so they can be part of the cool kids who "get" Eggleston.

The emperor's dick looks like it's swinging in the breeze, and nobody's been able to offer even a token description of what his clothes supposedly look like, so Occam's Razor is telling me the emperor has no fucking clothes here.

>>3143512
this

>>3143721
My thoughts exactly..