The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and The Honickman Foundation have announced that the one and the only William Eggleston will judge this year's CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography competition. Eggleston follows a line of renowned photographers who have judge the prize in the past including Robert Adams, Robert Frank and Mary Ellen Mark.

The winning photographer receives a $3,000 grant, publication of a book of photography, and inclusion in a website presenting the work of the award winning artists. Eggleston will also write the introduction for the book, which will be published by Duke University Press in association with CDS Books of the Center for Documentary Studies.

The competition is open to U.S. citizens of all ages who have not yet published a book-length work (described as: a publication which contains more than thirty of the photographer's images, and is sold through conventional book distribution channels). Each applicant must submit forty images from a larger body of work that, if he or she wins, would be the body of work from which the images for the book are selected. There is a $50 fee for entry and images should be submitted in digital form, on a CD.

In addition to Eggleston, all entries will be reviewed by a panel of photographers and editors, who will select 12 to 25 finalists by November 15, 2010. Finalists will be asked to submit ten sample prints from the body of their submitted work for the judge's review. The final winner will be publicly announced in January 2011.

Though Eggleston's groundbreaking work was in his use of color photography, this competition is open to both color and black and white submissions. Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies says of the addition of Eggleston as a judge, "William Eggleston brings to the First Book Prize his singular vision on the ordinary, his democratic view of the everyday...We could have no one better to locate the next great American photography book than him, no one more acute in seeing the brilliant fibers of the ever-present."

I had the opportunity to meet Eggleston in-person a few years ago at the unveiling of his monograph, 5"x7". Wearing a baby blue suit, jade cufflinks and a kerchief in his pocket, he'd lost none of his Nashville charm over the years. Most would agree that Eggleston's influence on the photography of the everyday is ineffably great, and that however common it has become to take photos of milk cartons and living rooms and women's hair, that perhaps there is something in the eye of one of the original beholders, that still sees something more than the rest of us.

Submissions for the 2010 competition will be accepted from June 15 to September 8, 2010. For guidelines on how to apply, FAQs and details about the award, visit the competition website.