William Eggleston is a genius, he agrees

There’s a wonderful interview in The New York Times with pioneering photographer William Eggleston. He is refreshingly blunt and unendingly confident.

“Oh, half of what’s out there is worthless,” he scoffs. “The only pictures I like are the ones I’ve taken.”

On having reservations about what he is photographing:

“That doesn’t happen,” he says with firm authority. When he raises the camera to his eye it’s because he’s going to take a picture and the picture is going to work, the end. He either takes one photograph of his subject or no photographs of it. There is never a moment of internal consideration or indecision — there is only certainty — which explains why he has no favorites: “Each one, to me, is equal, or I didn’t take it to begin with.”

Upon being asked if he is a genius, “He replies in a breathy, almost pitying drawl, ‘Well, yes.’ The unspoken message is clear: You’ve spent all day with me and you even have to ask?”

William Eggleston, the Pioneer of Color Photography, The New York Times Style Magazine.