William Eggleston

“William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008,” a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, is an outstanding retrospective of this American photographer. Criticized for photographs that at first seem mundane and banal, we see the work more clearly now. We know that it was not cheap. The dye transfer printing Mr. Eggleston used, adapted from advertising, was the most expensive color process then available. It produced hues of almost hallucinatory intensity. Eggleston lived in the Mississippi Delta and took pictures of friends and neighbors-- nobodies, nowhere. But the compositions that at first seemed bland now seem classic and influential. Take a closer look.