William Egglestone guide.

A while back I was looking at the photography section of the Foyles web site. When I came across a new copy of William Eggleston guide. I had to check to make sure that I was not wearing trick glasses. As far as I was concerned it could only be obtained second hand. So I did the right thing and purchased a copy and waited to see what came through the post.

It was reprinted in 2011 and first published in 1976 by the museum of modern art New York. It had been produced in conjunction with the début  exhibition of William Eggleston. The critics slammed the exhibition as boring and banal, by doing this they had completely miss read Eggleston's pictures.  Yes it was jejune and mundane, all in wonderful bright colour but that was the whole point. The common place in society was no longer the preserve of black and white. It was suddenly hip to make this type of picture using colour film.

The quirky nature of Eggleston's pictures is what appeals to me, the sense that there is more going on outside the frame makes me linger just that bit longer in case all is revealed! I know it is the 'picture of a moment in time' that appealed to Eggleston's eye; and  his view of the world, the way he puts it across that intrigues me.

I like his attitude - see the picture, take it and move on. He is not one to exhaust the view from every angle and at three different settings types. He knows his own mind and is prepared to take a risk, if it does not work he has not then wasted a whole film. In this respect I'm with Eggleston. 

The book is an unusual size being 9 ½ inches square (240 mm). A modern take I feel. I'm not sure that the first edition was this size. The cover has a simulated leather embossed feel to it with the picture inset. The pictures appear on one side of a double page spread. William Eggleston does not go in for giving his pictures titles but reveals the place where it was taken. Could a place name be a kind of title? The pictures do not always stand central on each page giving the book a rhythm of it's own.

I'm pleased this book is part of my collection after all these years.

The Catier Bresson influence.

I have been studying Henri Catier Bresson's work for some time among others. Which brings me to a new acquisition Published by Thames and Hudson about  Cartier Bresson. It has been a joy to read and is a pocket sized which accounts for it doing a lot of travelling with me being read at those odd times when I'm having coffee, waiting for an appointment or in a quite moments snatched between jobs. It is a thin volume that  has surprisingly taken quite a time to finish – which is  a good thing as it is one of those books I will be sad to see the back of.

It was not until recently that I noticed that all this reading about Henri and his methods, has influenced the way I have taken a number of pictures. All be it at a subconscious level. It is true to say HBC was a bit of a snapper, an opportunist when taking a number of his most well known pictures. His method in a number of cases was to wait at a location that interested him pictorially and watch life unfold in front of it. Some  favorites that illustrate this are: The stairway down to the street with the cyclist rushing by and the man jumping the puddle.

 

The picture of the lady walking her dogs along the sea front is a Bresson inspired image although at the time I did not realize this. My intention was to take an empty picture depicting the lamp post and line of the wall for a project that has been coming together over the years as an odd shot here and there. I was about to take the picture when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a group  were about to walk into shot or what I thought were people only to be present in the view finder as dogs. The next thing I know I had taken the shot with that little voice in your head saying that's a better shot. Having printed the picture it is not as good as when I took it. The day is depicted a lot duller than I remember but I do recall how brass monkey the weather was.

Do you find this happening to you when you have been reading about other photographers?

A favorite photograph.

Taken at the grand Prix de I'A.C.F.

Like a lot of people I enjoy watching the Grand Prix. By coincidence one of my favorite pictures is by the turn of the century french photographer Jacques-henri Lartigue.

He took this picture while he was still quite young. It is one in a series of a 169 shots taken at the Grand Prix de I'A.C.F. using the comparatively large Ica reflex camera with Zeiss 1:4.5 150mm lens onto a 3 1/2" x 4 1/4" glass negative it had a top mounted focusing screen and a focal plan shutter, it is this set up that accounts for the elliptical shape of the wheel. For me it is the feature that conveys the excessive speed the car is travelling more than his panning of this heavy camera to emphasize the rate of progress.. Originally he thought this picture was a failure because he had not been able to capture the whole car in the frame. This is the other part of the composition that adds to the sense of great speed. It is one picture I do not get tired of looking at, I always wonder what it would have been like to stand there as these early cars thundered by.