William Eggleston is one of America’s most important and influential photographers, who “secured color photography as a legitimate artictic medium for display in galleries.”

This candid interview with photographer William Eggleston was conducted by film director Michael Almereyda on the occasion of the opening of Eggleston’s retrospective William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961-2008 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

A key figure in American photography, Eggleston is credited almost single-handedly with ushering in the era of color photography. Eggleston discusses his shift from black and white to color photography in this video as, “it never was a conscious thing. I had wanted to see a lot of things in color because the world is in color.” Also included in this video are Eggleston’s remarks about his personal relationships with the subjects of many of his photographs.

Michael Almereyda is director of the film William Eggleston and the Real World (2005).