Eggleston

I saw a documentary about Memphis photographer William Eggleston this past Sunday called "William Eggleston in the real world," showing as part of the Indie Memphis Film Festival. It was interesting and did a good job of capturing his peculiarities. Some of his earliest photographs were shown, and they were just as phenomenal as anything else he's done. I think his portraits of people are the most striking. They look as if they're models posing according to some specific direction to look at the camera, yet not look posed, but they're not. He just captures them in the most perfect moment between awareness of the camera and their natural state of being. Here I am, take a picture. My favorite moment of the documentary was footage of Eggleston in some restaurant in small town Kentucky, taking pictures of a pinata set atop a cooler. You see his excitement after seeing the pinata, quickly getting his camera, and setting to work. The camera zoomed in on his face as he was shooting, and you see this intense concentration in the side view of his face and in his fingers manipulating the camera. You see the artistic moment of capture.