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Tag: colour

William Eggleston, the Pioneer of Color Photography

Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans

Augusten Burroughs’ strange and sad profile of photographer William Eggleston for T, the New York Times Style Magazine:

WE LEAVE THE OFFICES of the Eggleston Trust and go to his apartment. The first thing one sees upon entering is a bright red plastic sign with a yellow border, printed with capitalized white sans-serif text. It warns, “THE OCCUPANT OF THIS APARTMENT WAS RECENTLY HOSPITALIZED FOR COMPLICATIONS DUE TO ALCOHOL. HE IS ON A MEDICALLY PRESCRIBED DAILY PORTION OF ALCOHOL. IF YOU BRING ADDITIONAL ALCOHOL INTO THIS APARTMENT YOU ARE PLACING HIM IN MORTAL DANGER. YOUR ENTRY AND EXIT INTO THIS APARTMENT IS BEING RECORDED. WE WILL PROSECUTE SHOULD THIS NOTICE BE IGNORED. THE EGGLESTON FAMILY.” It is a devastating thing to see. Heartbreaking. I was also an alcoholic for decades, the kind who had shakes and saw spiders. I’m not even through the hallway and my mind is racing from “I want that sign” to “What kind of doctor prescribes alcohol for an alcoholic? Where was he when I was drinking?”

I ask if his drinking ever got in the way of his photography. “I’ve never been able to take a picture after a drink,” he says. “It just doesn’t work. Maybe — I don’t know what it is. It’s not like I’m too drunk to take a picture. I just — the whole idea of it just goes away after one or two drinks.” Eggleston perches atop the bench in front of his Bösendorfer concert grand piano. An active ashtray and a sweating tumbler of icy bourbon on a burn-marked coaster sit inside the piano directly on the frame. He reaches for the glass and takes several small, noisy sips and his body visibly relaxes. I know his relief, exactly. “I’m gonna get this drink down,” he tells me. And as soon as he does he wants another. He suggests that I pour one for myself and join him but I tell him that I don’t drink anymore, that once I start I can’t ever stop. He replies, “Well, I can stop, but I’ll admit I want another one.”

The profile is accompanied by a short film by Wolfgang Tillmans:

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Radiolab: Colors

On the latest episode of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich explore the science of colour (in their own inimitable and meandering style):

Radiolab: Colors mp3 

(pictured above: Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. Not mentioned in the show, but somewhat appropriate…? Any excuse for a bit Albers really…)

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Michael Wolff: Obsessively Interested In Everything

As a follow up to Monday’s post Is This A Good Time?, here’s designer Michael Wolff discussing curiousity, appreciation and imagination as part of Intel’s Visual Life series:

(via Quipsologies)

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Homage to the Square

A short documentary about the artist and educator Josef Albers, author of the seminal Interaction of Color and widely regarded as the father of modern colour theory:

The film is the first part of ‘The Full Spectrum’ a three-part series on colour produced earlier this year by Dwell Magazine.

(via Swiss Legacy)

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