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Thread: William Eggleston Show

  1. #1

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    William Eggleston Show

    I went to Eggleston retrospective at the whitney on friday was thrilled by it. The prints were absolutely spectacular. I have always been a fan of his work and what he has done for color photography. The dye-transfer prints were simply beautiful.

    The other interesting thing about this show was that it had nearly every type of print. The majority were his signature dye-transfers, but there were also c-prints, inkjet prints, lightjet prints, gelatin-silver prints, and even an iris print. As i started through the exhibit i kept thinking to myself, "how would digital prints stack up to these dye-transfers?" By the time i got through the exhibition i had my answer: very well. The exhibition demonstrated that each medium has its own strengths, although the dye-transfers did have a certain something about them. The only prints that i had a problem with were the larger-scale b&w lightjets. They were completely grain/pixel free, which was very impressive, but seemed to lack a richness that gelatin-silver prints have (although the g-s prints there were not great).

    Anyway, any one in the ny area in the next few months should see the show, it does not disappoint.

  2. #2
    Maris Rusis's Avatar
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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    The best picture making technology works well for William Eggleston and the results are certainly worthy of admiration but you could do the same.

    Just drop your exposed film off at the same lab where Eggleston drops off his exposed film. Order the same kind of prints as Eggleston orders and pay the prices Eggleston pays. Bingo! your pictures will be as gorgeous as the ones you admire at the Whitney. And your pictures could even be more interesting because they would feature your preferred subject matter seen the way you prefer to look at it.

    The Whitney exhibition demonstrates the gulf between what Eggleston does, point and click a camera, and what wonders the lab staff (the actual picture makers) conjure out of his exposed film.
    Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".

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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    That could be true for the newer digital prints. However, the dye-transfer prints were all printed by him. I also happen to like looking at his work in particular. I can understand not liking it, he has a very particular way of looking at the world, and some do cross the line into the mundane. However, he is responsible for printing the vast majority of his own work and must be respected for that. He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.

    He is, in a way, (read carefully here) similar to Ansel Adams: you may not like the subject matter, but you have to admire what he did for the medium.

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    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    Quote Originally Posted by mcfactor View Post
    He (along with stephen shore) is also a large reason why the majority of prints in galleries are color. He helped to demonstrate that color prints can rivial b&w one in beauty and craftsmanship.
    I don't think it was primarily beauty or craftmanship that got color into the museum, more the image content, which is consistent with the remark by Maris. However, back in the seventies, when you couldn't produce super saturated prints as easily as now, dye transfers must have contributed to the impact.

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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    I mean, the beauty part is always up for debate, so there's no point in arguing about it. Suffice it to say i find some of eggleston's dye-transfer prints (boy in red sweater) as beautiful as any print i have seen. One reason eggleston's work made it into museums in the 70s was because his subject matter was "mundane" and the prints were beautifully crafted. Demonstrating that color prints deserve a place in museums and that there is beauty in the everyday. I dont think that he would have gotten famous if his prints were 'drugstore' prints or simply made in some average lab as Maris implies.

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    C. D. Keth's Avatar
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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    Quote Originally Posted by mcfactor View Post
    I dont think that he would have gotten famous if his prints were 'drugstore' prints or simply made in some average lab as Maris implies.
    It's funny you word it that way. I found this on the Wikipedia article (I know how reliable wikipedia is, but this seems well-cited) about Eggleston:

    "John Szarkowski of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) describes his first, 1969 encounter with the young Eggleston as being "absolutely out of the blue." After reviewing Eggleston's work (which he recalled as a suitcase full of "drugstore" color prints) Szarkowski prevailed upon the Photography Committee of MOMA to buy one of Eggleston's photographs."

    So apparently a bunch of drugstore prints seemed important enough to somebody for them to purchase a photograph and thus help him along and preserve his work.

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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    Ha ha, there you go. I still like his work. and i maintain that his dye-transfer prints are beautiful. but thats pretty funny.

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    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    Note also that the recently published book of Stephen Shore, "American Surfaces", comes in a Kodak wrapper, similar to the one you used to get at the drugstore.

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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    yes, but the shore one was definitely done ironically.

  10. #10
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Re: William Eggleston Show

    From the publisher's description of American Surfaces"

    "First exhibited at the cutting edge New York City Light Gallery, this visual diary of Shore's travels across the United States confounded critics. Displayed as hundreds and hundreds of color photographs, processed simply at Kodak labs in New Jersey, they bore stark contrast to the formal, black-and-white prints that were recognized as art..."

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