I'm going to keep this brief as I've just typed about 500 words in this box before the browser crashed and I lost the lot. Last night on BBC One I watched a fascinating documentary on William Eggleston. You'll find it here if you read this before the 5th August 2009. It was wonderful to see him at work - he literally snaps his pictures. 50 years of knowing, even dreaming, perfect photographs means that he can see the picture before he even lifts the camera to his eye. I try to work like this for my landscapes, try to forget the formal composition, but looking back through some yet-to-be-put-together love landscape work just now I can see that I'm still thinking too much.
I think what I enjoyed most (and I watched it alone so only had the dog and my ukelele to explain this to) was that I hadn't realised that he was genuinely influenced in his formative years as a photographer by the snapshot. This revelation brought tears to my tired eyes. I've tried to explain before my belief in the genius that exists in entirely naive photograph, and sometimes in the accidental snap. I've listed these as my key influence, alongside names like Eggleston, Shore, Meyerowitz, for 15 years or more. I'm sure readers of photographic theory have known what I know now about Eggleston for years, but it's reassuring to know that if I share my love of the accidental perfection of snapshots with a true genius of photography.
I'm posting this with a newly put together shot taken some time ago in London - somewhere around Holland park, roughly here.
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