Thanks to everyone who commented about the Eggleston photo. Deb and Wanda, your reactions are similar to mine. Lori, you have a depth of experience and a rich vocabulary for analysis that I aspire to one day! Magsramsay, I’m not sure how big the original is – a quick Google search did not reveal the answer. But I suppose since it was a photograph, he could have printed it fairly small or fairly large, or anywhere in between. We first saw it as a projection on a very large screen in class and then later as a tiny image posted on the web for reference. That’s an interesting point about sizes – I’ve heard that a lot of people are surprised at how small the Mona Lisa is in person.
Well, as I mentioned, I had some anxiety about having to do an interpretation of this photo. The reason was that I just didn’t see what was so special about it. I had seen other work by Eggleston in the past, all of which I thought was a lot more interesting than this particular image. For one example, here’s another one of a comparable subject, but I think the way it’s composed is much more dynamic and engaging. I often find myself in this predicament when looking at art – I think to myself, so here’s this piece in a museum/gallery/arty magazine/whatever; therefore, it must be worthy of my admiration, yet I just don’t see why. I then have to wonder if I’m just lacking in perceptual skills, or whether it’s an emporer’s new clothes kind of thing, where someone of notoriety made it and that alone is enough to make it great. I suppose that in any particular instance, either answer might be right.
So instead of giving in to my first instinct, which was to pretend I found it amazing and write it up as such, I decided to be honest about my thoughts, and it turned out to be a pretty good experience. I’m finding that I’m actually starting to enjoy writing, and it does get easier as you go. My interpretation can be found here.
Now you’re talkin’ — “…where the viewer’s eye just might wander out of the photo, never to return.”
What an interesting thing to notice! And it makes me wonder about the “frame” of an image — this, and others.
I see lots of intensely reviewed and curated new contemporary photography where the energy of the image seems to me to sag and run flaccid off the edges of the photo. (You can tell by what I catch that those edges are really important to me.) Apparently the weak edge is now part of the image-maker’s vernacular.
And your comment also makes me think about people like Rothko and Hoffman, and how vital their surfaces seem to me in part because the power contained/constrained by the edge added to the power of the image…
Oh well, nattering on again.
But I really like where you’re going with your thinking!
I’ve been interested in this photo since you posted it a few days ago. But I’m a slow thinker. Sometimes it takes me days to think about something in the back of my mind. Now that I’ve read through everyone’s comments and your own paper, here are some things that occur to me.
You mention that maybe there somethng that could be considered a mistake in the composition. I don’t really understand photography as an art form, any photo art exhibits are usually beyond me as to why they are considered art. But maybe the car is dead center in the composition for reason. maybe it’s a backhand statement about American values and emphasis — the car is dead center, the house is 2nd at the side, and there are no people, no other life.
The other thing that strikes me is the sense of vastness, of open pioneer room to expand forever, a sense of unexplored horizons, and yet at the same time a kind of forlorned loneliness that that open vista conveys. It’s funny how this atmosphere might have been interpreted differently in the 70’s, can be interpreted totally different these days, with dimishing resources and a renewed sense that though the earth is vast, the resources are not unlimited.
But all art must be interpreted differently with different times, and it’s the most interesting art I think, that can stand that, almost like a crystal that gives off different light and reflections depending on the environment that it’s viewed.
Just had another thought, as you mentioned, the car itself looks older than a 1971 car which I agree with. If you’ve studied anything about about design principles of the 40’s and 50’s, you’ve probably come across planned obsolescence, the idea that industrial designers should design cars, refrigerators and other appliances so that the design details would appear out-of-date after a few years and consumers would be forced to purchase a new item based purely on design and not on necessity.
This photo almost appears to be a weird snapshot of mixed up decades. Have we created an environment for ourselves in suburban American that is destined to be obsolete because of short-sightness?
I think it is always best to be true to how you really feel in speaking and writing. I was always envious of the better writers but felt they stepped around the subject a bit.
You have certainly given us something to chew on here, Deidre. I was very interested in your interprtation and I feel that it may well have been a deliberate statement of the banality of life at that time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.