Untitled c. 1971s

This untitled photograph was made by William Eggleston sometime in his career, using his signature dye transfer process. It's all about the ordinary, right? But Eggleston elevates the mundane with his eye for colour, the grey blue palette here is just beautiful. It's like he's saying, "Hey, even these piles of pipes have a story to tell." And what a story! The texture of the pipes, that gritty, industrial feel, it's all right there. Then there’s that SANYGEN building in the background, and those ominous black vertical pipes...together they create a kind of eerie stage set, like a Hopper painting. You can almost hear the hum of the machinery. I keep thinking about Bernd and Hilla Becher, the way they documented industrial structures with such loving attention. Eggleston takes a different route, more intuitive. In both cases, though, art celebrates the poetics of the everyday.