For a long long time I’ve been an adamant colour street photographer. I honestly felt that black and white was a one of those “quick fixes” to try and make a bad photo a “good street photo” or a dumb pre-requisite for “real street”. As such, I wanted to push in a different direction and so focused on colour instead (with the exception of my black and white only experiment last month which was very interesting). With that in mind I’m glad Yuri choose William Egglestone for our Monday master this week as he is the godfather of colour photography.
Who is William Egglestone
William Egglestone is an American photographer originally from Tennessee who is famed for his influence on colour photography. Although he never formally studied photography, he discovered it via a friend gifting him a Leica camera. After that he burst onto the art scene and
One interesting quote from Richard Woodward which refers to William’s film “standard in canton” said the film reflects Egglestone’s
“fearless naturalism—a belief that by looking patiently at what others ignore or look away from, interesting things can be seen.”
I think that’s an interesting idea for street photographers, looking patiently at the things which other ignore or look away from. That certainly fits a mentality of “finding beauty in the mundane” that is so prevelantearly in street photography however, I wouldn’t limit Egglestone to being a street photographer (which is why I don’t think you should limit yourself to such a barrier either).
A curious side note, one of my favourite albums from my teenage years (bleed america) uses an Egglestone image as the album work.
My Monday Masters William Egglestone Photo Pick
Of course, one of my strongest reasons to pick this image was the amazing colour tones that appear in it. The beautiful purples and indigo tones have a really rich night feel (the blue hour has a great feel to it.) This really works well with the main subjects yellow coat which contrasts beautifully against the purple (that is a nice trick I’ll have to remember. In the blue hours, look for yellow subjects). I also really love the extreme foreground that is blurred and out of focus to add some depth to the image. But one of the aspects I really love is how he has aligned the telegraph poles and signs to overlap in wonderful ways.
It makes me wonder how quickly he saw this moment, was it a one time snap, did the woman turn his way at some point? Did he mess up the alignment in another shot? I don’t know but I love this image.
Join in With #MondayMasters
If you are a fan of William Egglestone’s work, please find an image of his you like and share it (on Twitter or a blog post) explaining what you like about it. Use the hashtag (#mondaymasters) so we can see everyone’s different choices and all get inspired together.
Check out other picks
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