William Eggleston is an American photographer was born July 29,1939 in Memphis, TN. Eggleston is 79 years old and raised in Sumner, MS. As a young boy, Eggleston enjoyed playing the piano, drawing, and working with electronics. He was drawn to visual media and specifically pictures. He attended a Southern boarding school as a teen and never truly experienced the arts until college at Vanderbilt University. Eggleston began using color film in the mid 1960s and drew background from photographers Robert Frank and William Christenberry. He began using dye-transfer printing while working at Harvard in the 1970s. Using this technique, he created a famous photograph named "The Red Ceiling" as well as his first portfolio. Eggleston was very good at creating photographs that took ordinary subject matter and made it extraordinary.
One photograph that involved the concept of ordinary to extraordinary with his Democratic Camera that was used from 1961-2008. One image in this large sample size that I chose is an image of a light bulb on a ceiling with three wires attached to it scaling the ceiling. Two principles of composition used in this photograph are light and value and frame within a frame. The image described has a background of a red wall with a frame located under and to the left of the light bulb. This frame is present to draw the viewers eye to the surroundings around the light bulb. Light and value is used to have the center of the image being drawn to the light, which is a bright white, and then following the wires to outer edges of the photograph.
As the viewer, I assume that the meaning of the photograph is that the light bulb is a source of inspiration trying to provide some brightness and hope into the darkness of society. The room is very bare, and a dark red which acts sort of like depression and gloominess. The light bulb is trying to spread its light across the room, or more reasonably, society. I think Eggleston was successful in making an ordinary object appear extraordinary. He was able to portray feelings of society in the image with only a light bulb, a few wires, a frame, and a blank red wall. I will use this photographer as inspiration in the future when given assignments to shoot images that may look boring and naked to the normal eye and attempt to add complexity and insight to the subject matter.
One photograph that involved the concept of ordinary to extraordinary with his Democratic Camera that was used from 1961-2008. One image in this large sample size that I chose is an image of a light bulb on a ceiling with three wires attached to it scaling the ceiling. Two principles of composition used in this photograph are light and value and frame within a frame. The image described has a background of a red wall with a frame located under and to the left of the light bulb. This frame is present to draw the viewers eye to the surroundings around the light bulb. Light and value is used to have the center of the image being drawn to the light, which is a bright white, and then following the wires to outer edges of the photograph.
As the viewer, I assume that the meaning of the photograph is that the light bulb is a source of inspiration trying to provide some brightness and hope into the darkness of society. The room is very bare, and a dark red which acts sort of like depression and gloominess. The light bulb is trying to spread its light across the room, or more reasonably, society. I think Eggleston was successful in making an ordinary object appear extraordinary. He was able to portray feelings of society in the image with only a light bulb, a few wires, a frame, and a blank red wall. I will use this photographer as inspiration in the future when given assignments to shoot images that may look boring and naked to the normal eye and attempt to add complexity and insight to the subject matter.