William Eggleston

William Eggleston was born July 27th 1939 Memphis Tennessee. In 1957 at the age of 18 he acquired his first camera, a Cannon rangefinder. Since then he has taken 1000s of pictures in his hometown. Although he has lived there his whole life, he has never ran out of things to photograph. Eggleston's earlier work was inspired by Swiss photographer Robert Frank and also by a French photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment. When he read this book he said that he saw 'art' he wanted to create something similar. All of Eggleston's earlier work was in back and white, but in 1965 he began to experiment with colour transparency film. by 1967 he is using colour negative film.
When he first started photographing in colour it took a long time for people to adjust and understand his work. This is because back in the 60s serious art photographers would only photograph in black and white. Eggleston explained his style of work as 'life today' and he had been photographing like this from the start. He only photographed what appeared to be non interesting or ugly, and had a self made rule that he would take one picture of each object. He would never photograph something more than once as this kept things simple. He enjoyed photographing nothingness so much that once he was asked to photograph someones wedding, and instead he went around taking pictures of ashtrays instead.
Here are some pictures of his most famous work...

The Red Ceiling is the title of a photograph by William Eggleston. It is also known as Greenwood, Mississippi, 1973 after the location and year it was taken.

A dye transfer print measuring 13 7⁄8 7⁄8 7⁄8 by 21 11⁄16 11⁄16 11⁄16 inches (35.2 by 55.1 cm), Eggleston considers it among his most challenging and powerful works. A copy of the photograph is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum, but is currently not on view at the Getty Centre. Another copy is held by the Museum of Modern Art.
It has been described as Eggleston's "most famous photograph,"

William Eggleston, Untitled, 1965-68 and 1972-74, from Los Alamos, 2003, Dye transfer print, 17-¾ x 12, Private collection, © Eggleston Artistic Trust.

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As a photographic response to what I have learnt about Eggleston and his work I have decided to copy his style to try and get similar results. This means I will go around the home town of where I live taking pictures, each of these pictures will be taken in black and white, and also that I will only photograph something once.
Here are my pictures...

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Image inspired by 'The Red Celling' although in black and white. 

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