William Eggleston's Lonely South

"One of the photographer William Eggleston's great strengths-his inspiring force-is to know when he's telling the truth about something and to stick with it. Although a number of critics didn't respond especially warmly to his landmark show "William Eggleston's Guide," when it opened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976-it was the first one-man show of color photography the museum ever presented-he dusted off that critical debris and continued to capture what he knew:"

"Now eighty-six, Eggleston-who was born and lives in Memphis-has a distinctly Southern sense of humor that draws on observation, gossip, and a love of the absurd. Although he has said that the South he grew up in bears little resemblance to the present-day version, he still mines what he's always mined: the pockets of loneliness that Truman Capote-a New Orleans native-evoked in an essay about his home town and the "long, lonesome perspectives" of its streets."

William Eggleston presents color photographs that insist on the truth of ordinary Southern life, sticking to observations even amid early critical resistance. His images capture a Memphis-rooted sensibility that mixes melancholic amusement, absurd humor, and trenchant lyricism reminiscent of Southern writers and playwrights. The photographs focus on small, telling details—placid swimming pools, startling displays of racial difference, long empty streets—that reveal pockets of loneliness and an insider-outsider perspective. Eggleston treats words and pictures as distinct mediums and works alone to photograph scenes that feel fictional yet fact-based. The result is a confident, singular vision of the American South.

Read at The New Yorker