William Eggleston, "Memphis (Tricycle)"
1969, dye transfer print
This picture was taken by William Eggleston, an American photographer. Eggleston started out as a black and white photographer inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Walker Evans but then later became to be more recognized for color photography. While other street photographers roamed the world documenting beautiful landscapes, fine art and notable events, Eggleston while stuck in Memphis where at one point told a friend that there was nothing to photograph because everything in the city was ugly. The friend then told him to "photograph the ugly stuff." Eggleston began to do just that and make photographs of things that were often overlooked, the mundane and the ordinary. Instead of trying to find extraordinary things to photograph, Eggleston was drawn to the everyday and boring and wanted to show the beauty of things that we often overlook. This photograph stands out because it finds beauty in the common place and turns something such as a rusty old tricycle into something iconic. In this photograph, Eggleston documented an ordinary and boring subject from a new perspective and enlarged the mundane to make it special.
