This photograph from the early 1980s is among the later works in Eggleston's iconic "Southern Suite." Mark Holborn writes that “he returned to the South [in 1980]… He was finding intricate compositions in the simplest of circumstances — the surfaces of walls, a row of steps, amidst dereliction and graveyards, then out on the road across great sweeping vistas of the landscape of this Southern heartland” (Holborn, William Eggleston: Ancient and Modern, 22).

Eggleston referred to his photographs as "shotgun pictures”, after his technique of shooting film without a viewfinder. The tilted horizon of Tennessee Gulf Sign imbues the image with a dynamic, momentarily quality, while the lurid red sign (Eggleston was most captivated by colour red) anchors the composition.