A man lies on his back on a harvest gold shag carpet in a living room in Memphis, 1975, staring up at a white ceiling fan with three blades spinning in a blur, the photograph taken from his perspective looking vertically upward so the fan dominates the center while the edges of the frame reveal the tops of doorways and a chandelier with dangling crystals catching the light. He holds a can of Schlitz beer in his right hand resting on his chest, the aluminum condensation glistening under the ambient glow of a television set off-camera which casts a flickering blue light across his face and the textured ceiling plaster. The composition is disorienting and democratic, giving equal weight to the dust motes dancing in the light, the water stain in the corner of the crown molding, and the man's bored expression. The dye-transfer process saturates the colors: the gold of the carpet visible at the periphery, the arterial red of a beer coaster on a side table just entering the frame, and the sickly green of the painted walls, creating a sense of intoxicated suspension and domestic claustrophobia typical of Eggleston's interior studies.
eggleston_style
