The art establishment kept color photography at arm’s length for decades after the invention of standardized processes, but that changed in the 1970s when photographers like Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz, and Stephen Shore were promoted by major museums. A watershed exhibition of Eggleston’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976 was roundly criticized in the press—one critic wrote that the images included “dismal figures inhabiting a commonplace world”—but the show has since become a defining moment of color photography’s acceptance as a fine art.

This photograph was part of that exhibition, and it includes the everyday imagery rendered in luscious tones that became Eggleston’s signature. Shooting from below, Eggleston puts the viewer on the ground alongside the car, invoking the tickle of grass, the warmth of dappled sunlight, and the companionable quiet of a lazy southern afternoon.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)