William Eggleston

William Eggleston is a photographer whom I have only recently become familiar with however I did recognize a number of his photographs as they seem to have become iconic images. I think that his work is relatively similar to Nan Goldin in that they both have a similar photographic style and they both photograph directly from life. However, Egglestone’s images don’t grab me like Goldin’s do; I find that there are a few interesting images throughout his books but that they don’t seem to work so well as a body of work like Goldin’s do. I think that she takes what she saw as banal images as they depicted her everyday life but she made these images extraordinary in the way that she photographed herself and the people around her; also the pictures were the medium by which she let people see her extraordinary life and discover things about her. However I find Egglestone’s work to be not only banal to him but banal to me as well. He doesn’t seem to have a relationship with anything that he photographs and he doesn’t seem to be searching for anything or studying or observing. The images seem to have been taken at random which is good because they are honest photographs depicting genuine moments in time but the thing is that nothing much seems to be happening; they are not remarkable moments. Also I feel that photography is a means to an end whether it be discovering something as a photographer or teaching the viewer something and making them think and interpreting things in different ways and I don’t feel that Egglestone’s photography does this for me.