Before Colour: photographer William Eggleston in black-and-white

From the Guardian
"Eggleston in black-and-white? It seems a contradiction in terms. But here, finally, is the evidence that even the most famous colour photographer of all once saw the world around him in monochrome. It is quite a surprise.


A new book, published by Steidl, is called simply Before Colour. It's a great title: specific to the arc of William Eggleston's development, but suggestive of the wider impact that his first colour images had on photography in general. We now often divide the history of photography into before and after colour – a shift of consciousness that is often put down to Eggleston's ground-breaking show at MoMA in 1976, which shocked critics with its dramatic, heavily saturated dye-transfer prints. In fact this wasn't the first time that colour photography had appeared in a major American gallery: photographer Stephen Shore exhibited colour images of America at the Metropolitan Museum of Art four years earlier, and also caused something of a critical storm."

Continues

The Weird Adventures of Eadweard Muybridge - BBC IPlayer

Eadweard Muybridge born and died in Kingston upon Thames, but spent much of his time in the USA, this BBC programme tells the interesting story of this pioneering photographer.

"Pioneer photographer, forefather of cinema, showman, murderer - Eadweard Muybridge was a Victorian enigma. He was born and died in Kingston upon Thames, but did his most famous work in California - freezing time and starting it up again, so that for the first time people could see how a racing horse's legs moved. He went on to animate the movements of naked ladies, wrestlers, athletes, elephants, cockatoos and his own naked body, projecting his images publicly with a machine he invented and astounding audiences worldwide with the first flickerings of cinema. Alan Yentob follows in Muybridge's footsteps as he makes - and often changes - his name, and sets off to kill his young wife's lover. With Andy Serkis as Muybridge."

IPlayer   and the Wikipedia entry