William Eggleston Quotes

20 quotes in 275 categories

• 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…
• I don't think about what camera I should use that much. I just pick up the one that looks nicest on the day.
• 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…
• 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:…
• I am at war with the obvious.
• You can take a good picture of anything. A bad one, too.
• 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…
• 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…
• Whether a photo or music, or a drawing or anything else I might do—it’s ultimately all an abstraction of my peculiar experience.
• There is no particular reason to search for meaning.
• It quickly came to be that I grew interested in photographing whatever was there wherever I happened to be. For any reason.
• Photography just gets us out of the house.
• I like to photograph democratically.
• I don't like reading music. It's like learning a language. You can't read music proficiently overnight. It takes time, it's boring work.
• I met and became close with John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art. He was incredibly supportive about me working in color.
• Something new always slowly changes right in front of your eyes - it just happens.
• I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more important or less important.
• Everything must work in concert. Composition is important, but so are many other things, from content to the way colours work with or against each…
• A lot of my friends were mostly working in black-and-white - people like Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and others. We would exchange prints…
• I work very quickly. I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two.

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