William Eggleston

It's funny to think that William Eggleston encountered so much initial derision at the hands of critics. Now his photographs seem anything but controversial -- his style has become a part of our vocabulary and his influence can be seen everywhere you look -- one could go so far as to argue that his is one of the dominant aesthetics of our time. But when he first unveiled his work it was criticized as just being simple snapshots of the mundane. It's painfully obvious now, however, just how talented he is.

One of the other major criticisms of his work was his use of colour, which seems hard to believe. But, prior to his 1976 exhibition at MOMA, only black and white was taken seriously and colour work was resigned to advertising and catalogs. He ended up utilizing the same labs responsible for this commercial work, taking advantage of the intense saturation of colour provided by the dye-transfer process.

Hands down, William Eggleston is one of my favourite photographers. And hey, since this blog is ostensibly focused on men's style, it doesn't hurt that he's a pretty dapper gent, as can be seen in the above portrait by Juergen Teller.