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 More Quotes by William Eggleston More Quotes From William Eggleston 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 photography answers people 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 photography artist struggle I am at war with the obvious. William Eggleston photography photographer war I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more or less important. William Eggleston important photographer way A picture is what it is and I've never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn't make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they're right there, whatever they are. William Eggleston taken mean people 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 cameras looks thinking 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 follow-up photograph impossible 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 taken somewhere-else two There is no particular reason to search for meaning. William Eggleston search-for-meaning photographer reason It quickly came to be that I grew interested in photographing whatever was there wherever I happened to be. For any reason. William Eggleston happened grew reason You can take a good picture of anything. A bad one, too. William Eggleston photographer Photography just gets us out of the house. William Eggleston photography photographer house 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 play mean ideas I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. William Eggleston appreciate photographer people Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me. William Eggleston black-and-white photography art Well, probably the best way to put it might be that at some time, not just in an instant, but over some period of time I became aware of the fact that I wanted to document examples like Kroger or Piggly Wiggly in the late '50s, early '60s. William Eggleston example might way I want to make a picture that could stand on its own, regardless of what it was a picture of. I've never been a bit interested in the fact that this was a picture of a blues musician or a street corner or something. William Eggleston musician want facts 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 down-and quality interesting 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 magazines art firsts I don't look at other photographs much at all. I don't know why. I study my own a lot. William Eggleston study photograph looks
