[Leica] Re: [Eggleston]

["Roy Feldman" <royfel@hotmail.com>]

Sorry to hear of Nathan's take on Wm. Eggleston, I felt the same way when I
first viewed W. E.'s work. I now regard him as the photographer who opened
my eyes to so many possibilities, I continue to exhibit and show work and
have been doing so for 15 + years because of the lessons I learned from
Eggleston.
In (sorry) Art school we were shown 'The Guide', at first I couldn't believe
that this jumble of "snap" shots actually made it into the MOMA. I couldn't
understand the man who introduced Frielander, Winograd, Arbus  etc.
(Szcarkowski) was now holding up 'this  guy' as the new poster boy for what
is in. Considerable exhibition space was given and Eggleston's Guide (even
if you hate the pictures) is an example of book making at its finest. I
spent the next year or so trying to see what critic after critic, publisher
after publisher (at one time there were 4 Eggleston monographs in my book
store) was seeing that I wasn't. It was only after I asked the question "
what could have possesed 'this guy' to take these pictures?" that I started
to see his brilliance. Try and put your self in the mind of the
photographer, I have found this to be an important clue to understanding
contemporary 'Art" photography.
The following comes from Joel M. but helps when I look at Wm. E. -"
Occasionaly I will see a pretty girl, our eyes will meet, perhaps she is in
a passing car, there is no chance of meeting her, but for one brief second
there is a spark between us- it's this spark I try to photograph."
"I am at war with the obvious"- Wm. Eggleston.