Jo Ann Walters and Peter Fraser, two celebrated photographers who both spent time working side by side with Eggleston in Memphis, describe their experiences and what they learned from the artist. In conversation with the Gallery’s Head of Photographs, Phillip Prodger. This event takes place at the Ondaatje Wing Theatre at The National Portrait Gallery in London. 

Jo Ann Walters holds a BA from Arizona State University and an MFA from Ohio University. She exhibits nationally and internationally and  has received numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986, over the course of which she lived on and off with Eggleston and his wife in Memphis. Her work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, St. Louis Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Portland Museum of Art, Danforth Museum of Art, Bibliotèque Nationale, among others. Walters has been described by Eggleston as “one of the few independently original photographers working in the medium today.”

Peter Fraser was born in Cardiff in 1953 and graduated in photography from Manchester Polytechnic University in 1976. In 1982 Fraser began working with a Plaubel Makina camera, which led to an exhibition with William Eggleston at the Arnolfini, Bristol, in 1984. Fraser went on to spend time living and working with Eggleston in the States, an experience which cemented his belief in the possibilities of colour photography. In 2002 the Photographers’ Gallery, London, staged a twenty-year survey of Fraser’s work, and in 2004 he was shortlisted for the Citibank Photography Prize. From January to May 2013, Tate St Ives held a retrospective of Fraser’s career, and Tate published a major monograph on the whole of Fraser’s career with a text by David Chandler. In 2014 Fraser was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society, UK.