Quote

My friend who I went to boarding school with was interested in photography. He insisted that I buy a camera and marched me downtown.

William Eggleston

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Eggleston
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: July 27
Artist
Photographer
Memphis
Tennessee
Bill Eggleston
School
Insisted
Downtown
Camera
Cameras
Photography
Interested
Friend
Marched
Went
Boarding

More quotes by William Eggleston

Image
I had the attitude that I would work with this present-day material and do the best I could to describe it with photography, not intending to make any particular comment about whether it was good or bad or whether I liked it or not. It was just there, and I was interested in it. That's what I still do today.
William Eggleston
Image
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
Image
Photography just gets us out of the house.
William Eggleston
Image
Whether a photo or music, or a drawing or anything else I might do—it’s ultimately all an abstraction of my peculiar experience.
William Eggleston
Image
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
Image
And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do.
William Eggleston
Image
There is no particular reason to search for meaning.
William Eggleston
Image
I don't look at other photographs much at all. I don't know why. I study my own a lot.
William Eggleston
Image
I quite frequently don't look through the camera, which is very close to being blind.
William Eggleston
Image
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
Image
I like to photograph democratically.
William Eggleston
Image
I have some that I have become a well-known-even infamous-client of, mostly in Memphis. But a great deal of that is legend and doesn't have anything to do with truth.
William Eggleston
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I knew it was happening, but I never paid much attention to it . . . just to the passage of time. Something new always slowly changes right in front of your eyes - it just happens.
William Eggleston
Image
I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more or less important.
William Eggleston
Image
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
Image
It was something new that was happening everywhere. You couldn't miss it. If you needed to go to the grocery you would go to the predecessors of the big supermarkets of today.
William Eggleston
Image
I would go there quite frequently. I met and became close with John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art. He was incredibly supportive about me working in color.
William Eggleston
Image
You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.
William Eggleston