Bill Webb, jr.

Although dissimilar, Bill Webb’s images leave me with the feelings evoked when I view photographs by Vivian Maier, Diane Arbus and William Eggleston. Webb’s art is redolent of his iconoclastic personality and focus that seems to seize on the odd rather than the ordinary. He has a manner of mischief on which his viewers and friends might vicariously take a ride. Webb’s images seem universally to be taken from lonely vignettes that make me feel I am that restaurant in Edward Hopper’s famous painting “Nighthawks.” This is not an unpleasant place to be, rather this painting and Webb’s images reflect real life and those aspects of the mundane that our culture naturally attempts to avoid in empty diversions and distractions. Colin Ruthven, Artist, retired Illustrator, The Memphis Commercial Appeal



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Mention color photography and Memphis, and inevitably William Eggleston’s name and body of work will come to mind. Bill Webb, Jr. is also a color photographer from Memphis, but his body of work seems quite different from Eggleston’s. The latter takes photos of people and places that make everyday persons and objects seem alien and unknowable. Webb, on the other hand, takes pictures mostly of buildings and public places. One rarely sees photos of people by Webb, but their presence is always felt and implied even when Webb is photographing abandoned buildings or desolate places. Webb may use odd angles, filters and lenses, but his photos seem full of action and people even when the latter are not in the frame. That is, he takes pictures of unfamiliar places and makes them seem familiar. Not an easy feat to take photos of buildings and sites without people that somehow seem full of their presence. Webb’s photography is very emotionally warm in that sense and invites the viewer into a community that always seem just outside the picture. Wedding modernity and sentimentality is Webb’s unique talent. Ross Johnson. Writer, Creem Magazine, MEMPHIS MAGAZINE, Memphis, Tennessee

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I like looking at WEBB’s photos because it’s never just a visual experience for me. Having lived in Memphis for a good while and then leaving, it’s always a combo of wistfulness, amusement, and experiences for my other senses. Sometimes I can smell the smoker down the corner from his capture, Hear my tires rolling over the broken glass by the curb outside of his frame, OR Picture myself tripping over aN ABANDONED WIG as I hear a shouting match through an open window in the back of the building he shot. ALLI MERRIT, GETTY IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHER, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

Bill Webb, jr. is a fine arts photographer AND the AWARD WINNING RADIO SHOW HOST of memphis weirdos, every TUESDAY at 7PM CST ON WRMI, 9395 KHZ. He also Plays bass in Memphis torture rock music band, Turnt.