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It quickly came to be that I grew interested in photographing whatever was there wherever I happened to be. For any reason.

William Eggleston

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William Eggleston
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: July 27
Artist
Photographer
Memphis
Tennessee
Bill Eggleston
Came
Happened
Whatever
Reason
Photographing
Wherever
Quickly
Interested
Grew

More quotes by William Eggleston

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Whatever it is about pictures, photographs, it's just about impossible to follow up with words. They don't have anything to do with each other.
William Eggleston
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Generally, that's what happens-a fundamental rotting of the idea. They woke up with the wrong idea. It's just like music: If you don't have an innate love or calling for it, then no matter how much you study or how well you can play by looking at the score, it doesn't mean that you're going to make really good music.
William Eggleston
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Many people one meets in life somehow think they know you simply because they're hanging out at the same counter-but they really don't know a thing about you.
William Eggleston
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I've also never had favorite pictures. Or subjects. I have this discipline of treating everything equally-I used to say democratically.
William Eggleston
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Half voluntarily, half Winston's older brother [William] would take me in, saying, Daddy, I think you oughta do this. And I'd say, I think you're right, maybe I do need it. Sometimes a week later I'd leave the place sometimes I'd stick it out for a month.
William Eggleston
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I don't think that has ever changed. I don't think I see any more or any less than I did years ago. Let's say I have the print of a photo taken in the 1960s and one I took a month ago. I think it's pretty difficult to tell any difference, personally.
William Eggleston
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I don't have a burning desire to go out and document anything. It just happens when it happens. It's not a conscious effort, nor is it a struggle. Wouldn't do it if it was. The idea of the suffering artist has never appealed to me. Being here is suffering enough.
William Eggleston
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I don't think about what camera I should use that much. I just pick up the one that looks nicest on the day.
William Eggleston
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Only the few times I've been to so-called treatment centers, which were a complete waste of money and useless. I didn't know what I was doing at the time, because I was always drunk when I checked in.
William Eggleston
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I’ve always assumed that the abstract qualities of [my] photographs are obvious. For instance, I can turn them upside down and they’re still interesting to me as pictures. If you turn a picture that’s not well organized upside down, it won’t work.
William Eggleston
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We have a few things in common - smoking, drinking, and women. Photography just gets us out of the house. (To photographer Juergen Teller)
William Eggleston
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I quite frequently don't look through the camera, which is very close to being blind.
William Eggleston
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I don't look at other photographs much at all. I don't know why. I study my own a lot.
William Eggleston
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You can take a good picture of anything. A bad one, too.
William Eggleston
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I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more or less important.
William Eggleston
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The immediate reviews were very hostile, but they didn't bother me-I had the attitude that I was right. The poor guys who were critics just didn't understand the works at all. I was sorry about that, but it didn't weigh on my mind a bit.
William Eggleston
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I would play music every day from the time I was about 4 or 5 years old. Every time I would go from one end of the house to the other, I would pass the piano and play a few notes.
William Eggleston
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I don't like reading music. It's like learning a language. You can't read music proficiently overnight. It takes time, it's boring work.
William Eggleston
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I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two. So then that picture is taken and then the next one is waiting somewhere else.
William Eggleston
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Often people ask what I'm photographing, which is a hard question to answer. And the best what I've come up with is I just say: Life today.
William Eggleston