Top image: William Eggleston: Los Alamos

Hailed as the pioneer of colour photography, William Eggleston’s influence spans further than superlatives. Having switched from black and white to colour film in 1965, the Tennessee-hailing photographer carved a unique visual language that continues to inspire to this day. Tracing his oeuvre, a new ehibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, joins the dots on his seminal series, Los Alamos.

Comprising 75 dye-transfer prints from colour negatives made between 1965 and 1974. The exhibition marks the first time the series will be presented in its entirety in New York City. Named after its location of origin, a city in New Mexico that served as a research facility where atomic weapons were developed, the series, similarly to other Eggleston’s mature work, focuses on and glorifies the ordinary with a drip of danger looming over it.

The images – including Eggleston’s first ever colour photograph, Untitled, Memphis, 1965 – focus on suburban life and take full advantage of the chromatic intensity of the dye-transfer colour process that, until Eggleston appropriated it in the 1960s, had been used primarily by commercial photographers for advertising photography.

William Eggleston: Los Alamos runs at The MET from 14th February to 28th May 2018. Find out more about the exhibition here.