A recent TOP post on Eggleston photo sometimes titled "Jackson, Missippi" coming up for auction at Christie's. This is perhaps one Eggleston's more famous pictures.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/02/eggl... "Jackson, Missippi" shows an old woman wearing a brightly colored polyester print dress on a swinging couch with an equally garish upholstery.
But you probably haven't seen this photo before
I'd hadn't seen this Eggleston shot before. And Google image searches suggest it's not on the Internet so I'm not sure how many others have seen it.
The image is from a screen capture from the "William Eggleston in the Real World" a documentary released in 2005 on available on DVD. It's in the titles at the end of movie.
That dapper young man on the swing is (a young) Eggleston. It gives a sense of how long ago the "old woman on a swing" photo was taken (given that Eggleston is seventy-ish). It's an image out of time.
The two photos are shot close together in time but not at the same time: check out the leaf litter in front of the couch (certainly the same year and season) and the sun striking the log in the background (it's different in the two shots -- the sun moved). The camera is slightly lower in the Eggleston shot and is perhaps shot with a longer focal length or camera further away? The complicating factor is the video is 4:3 so the picture is cropped. I think the left and right edges are cropped (assuming 3:2 original) so perhaps it's the same focal length but further away from the couch. The other obvious point is the saturation of the print isn't pushed as hard: the upholstery looks faded and worn "self-portrait".
I don't think I've seen a self-portrait of Eggleston before either. Neither has Weski
http://www.egglestontrust.com/hasselblad_weski.html > In the only self-portrait of William Eggleston known to me, the photographer--only partially visible--is looking at an old fan, its shiny brass propeller corresponding with the warm yellow of a plastic bottle before him. Standing in front of an old, white enamel Coca-Cola sign, the fan harks back, through its antiquated form, to bygone days, but without any hint of sentimentality.
So that's not this one ...
BTW, the doc isn't as good as the BBC Imagine one. A bit too much aping Eggleston's photo and video style (the mundane; the fragmentary shot; the odd angles; getting too close with the video camera). The map isn't the territory. But still interesting and does cover some different areas of Eggleston's life "The Colorful Mr Eggleston".
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