Radiant Nation: William Eggleston

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THIS MUCH IS true about William Eggleston, often referred to as the father of color photography: He works quickly, never stages a photograph and takes only one shot.

Eggleston learned early on that when something caught his eye, he didn't need rolls of film to capture his mark. "[Starting out], I would take many frames essentially of the same subject, see, and I would have to decide which one was the best," Eggleston told Express while in D.C. for his current retrospective "William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008," at the Corcoran. "I figured, why not just take one? I'm going to eventually choose, and I could never make up my mind."

He mentions "Greenwood, Mississippi," a 1973 image of a red ceiling, split with white wiring in a striking harmony of rich color. He snapped the shot — perhaps his most famous — while visiting the colorful house of an eccentric friend. "I looked up and, my God, saw this bare light bulb and these wires and the whole room being red," says Eggleston. "I took one picture and that was that, and we just continued talking."

Eggleston sent the print to Museum of Modern Art curator John Szarkowski, who responded, "This is something I've never seen before. I'm putting it on the wall today."

This sort of anecdote is typical in Eggleston's story. In 1967, the Memphis-born photographer, then 28, first appeared at Szarkowski's office with a box of prints. Nine years later, he opened his groundbreaking show at the MoMA, at a time when black-and-white photography was still king.

"It was an unsaid rule that art photography had to be really large and absolutely black and white," recounts Eggleston. "Color was, of course, around, but was almost exclusively used for fashion magazines."

Walking through the Corcoran survey, it's not hard to see why his photographs initially caused such a stir. Even now, the vibrancy of Eggleston's colors demand attention.

His subjects are in no way glamorous, as he came from a generation of photographers such as Stephen Shore, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, who found their muse in the quotidian. Even a seemingly banal object in an Eggleston picture like a half-drunk soda on the hood of a car is surprisingly arresting, as it's caught by shimmering light.

"The ordinariness that he manages to make extraordinary is all part of this wonderful world that he has created in his photographs, and it's hard to ignore," says Corcoran curator Amanda Maddox. "He has this incredible eye for finding unusual perspectives and making something out of nothing."

In the exhibition, his seminal images of the South from the 1960s and '70s show what made him a legend. But surprises can be found: His early, grainy black-and-white photographs feel just like an artist's first attempt — showing potential but without packing a punch.

Black and white works in his favor in the 1973 series "5x7," where large-scale portraits depict nightlife revelers plucked from another era. A rare video, "Stranded in Canton," continues the 1970s time warp as it follows the nocturnal habits of people Eggleston encountered in bars and clubs, in experimental camera work.

He takes a vigilant and thoroughly democratic approach in his photographs, where friends, family, strangers, an iced-over freezer or a child's bicycle are all represented equally. He elevates the mundane and the overlooked, even in recent prints, such as a 2001 photo from Kyoto, which shows nothing of the city's culture, but focuses on an arrangement of plastic-wrapped flowers.

As actor Dennis Hopper, an acquaintance of the photographer's, once said, "Everybody who takes color photographs is influenced by him. Anyone who has taste, at least."

» Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. NW; through Sept. 20; 202-639-1700

Written by Express contributor Danielle O'Steen
Photos courtesy Corcoran School of Art