Before Color - William Eggleston

If you are an artist born into our class, The Working Class, you are in trouble. There are many obstacles preventing you from creating, and very little help. Equipment and materials are expensive, sometimes unobtainable, competing with life's essentials. Of all the myriad crimes of capitalism, and there will always be too many to list, the hindrance of art is up there with the best of them. The greatest paintings you never saw, and the greatest music you never heard are by artists from the working class.

But as Elvis said, If you are looking for trouble, then you are in the right place. The camera is a genuine democratiser of art. It takes next to nothing in skill to lift the viewfinder to your eye and press the shutter. You can get a basic camera fairly cheaply, and away you go. This simple start is deceptive though. The more you look the more you see. Light becomes an object and all things take on new meanings. The tenacity of the working class cannot be stamped out, and what does not kill us, makes us stronger.

William Eggleston is a pioneer in the genre of vernacular photography. The study of everyday things. His book, Before Color, is a collection of images from the late sixties to early seventies of America's South. He breaks the 'rules'. Body parts cropped out of frame, horizons skewed, Because the subjects take centre stage, not technical banalities. Working class life is captured in all its reality. Americana cars, diners and lounges transport us back through time and history. I love these pictures as I love work by Stephen Shore and Henri Cartier-Bresson. To the unskilled and uncultured eye, these images may be described as banal. Until you sit with them for a while, meditate on them and let the sublime aesthetics seep into your soul.

I found my copy in my local WHSmith. A poor excuse for a bookshop, but the only option around. It has a pathetically small photographic section, maybe ten books, so I snapped up this gem feeling like a diamond prospector. At the till, the barcode didn't register a price or any other details. It seemed right and fitting that something as beautiful as this book, and what it represents bucked the corporate retail machine. For minute, I thought they wouldn't be able to even sell it, but that part of the transaction was successful, of course.