Books and Art I Like: Image Makers Image Takers and William Eggleston
I’ve been plowing my way through this book - Image Makers Image Takers - interviews with photographers, curators, and editors. Of course, I find the interviews with photographers the most interesting because I like to hear about the artistic process from the artists. The curator material is good because it’s introduced me to some photographers I didn’t know about but whose work is fresh and interesting. As part of my Art Week here at KDD, I’ll share some of my favorite quotes from the book periodically.
I’ve always loved William Eggelston. I’ve read quite a bit about him, including all the essays in the book on his retrospective at the MOMA, and I’ve watched his film Stranded in Canton and the documentary about him William Eggleston in the Real World (produced by Gus Van Sant). So I’m no stranger to his work, but this little book offered me some fresh quotes from Eggleston himself. Here are two of my favorite quotes from the book and a couple of my favorite photos to go with them.
William Eggleston
Untitled (Biloxi, Mississippi), 1974
I compose very quickly and without thinking, but consciously. I take a picture instantly and never more than one. Sometimes I worry about the picture being out of focus, but I take that chance. A long time ago, I would have taken several shots of the same thing, but I realized that I could never decide which one was the best. I thought I was wasting a lot of time looking at these damn near identical pictures. I wanted to discipline myself to take only one picture of something, and if it didn’t work out, that’s just too bad. But it’s pretty much always worked.
--William Eggleston
Of course, I have to love this quote. This is a discipline that I have been learning over the past year. In the old days, I’d go out and shoot with my digital camera and come back with hundreds of photos to go through. Now, I shoot maybe 10-20 in any given place, and if I don’t see the photo I want to take, I don’t take it. I still have a way to go before I reach Eggleston’s prudence, but I’m getting there. I’ve gone from taking 100-200 photos of a place to 10-20. I think that’s major progress. But I sure in the fuck am no Eggleston. Who could be?
William Eggleston, Untitled, Memphis, Tennessee, 1975
When someone asked him why he took pictures, my old friend Garry Winogrand said, 'Because I want to see what something looks like when it's photographed.' I've never been able to top that quote. I feel the same way.
--William Eggleston
What else is there to say about this quote? I love to photograph anything, especially things people don’t usually deem worthy of photographing. I remember the very first time I went on a photography walk with Mark, and I photographed a beige cement block wall with a big stain in the middle and a No Parking sign in front of it. I showed him the photo, and he said, “That’s really good.” I guess it was at that point that I should have known we were made for each other.