Stephen Shore's 'Uncommon places' feels common!

<p>I have been looking at the pictures from Stephen Shore's uncommon places and found the experience to be wholly unrewarding. The commonality of the subject makes it utterly unremarkable for me. What am I missing? Why were they so well received 'eventually' although failed to generate initial interest? Were they too common and every day so retain interest? Are there deep philosophical questions asked by these plates that I am not seeing?</p>

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<p>The commonality of the subject makes it utterly unremarkable for me.</p>

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<p>I get a lot out of a photographer like Stephen Shore, and his Uncommon Places photographs. They're about seeing, and you can't look out for or hope to find seeing itself in a photograph.<br /> Especially with a photographer like Stephen Shore, the <em>photograph</em> is the subject, and not something isolated within it to look out for or to find. The subject is mostly an exploration throughout the image's formal visual language. The questions are primarily purely photographic, <em>visual</em>, besides also cultural ( like his <em>American Surfaces</em> series ) and not at all to be necessarily deeply philosophical.</p>

 

<p>I like them because they are so photographic, using the most essential qualities of the photographic process, of recording and transcribing scenes. I think maybe also, his work like that of say Eggleston, has become so influential that it has been reformulated by many other photographers, many times even from secondhand influences, that it may be now harder to appreciate how original color photography of everyday scenes was back then. I think Shore's work though clearly is remarkable and has deep appeal and visual beauty. It makes you want to go out and explore with your camera really. They engage so wonderfully with an exploration of the formal qualities of the photographic medium.<br /><br />I've responded almost instantly to the work of many photographers. I've found that I could read their intentions when looking at their photographs, and found many appealing qualities. But I've always gained much by delving deeper and studying their work and those of their contemporaries. It has a lot to do with experience and training your eye and reading the history of photography, then you'll become more visually literate and will be able to make informed judgments. You'll be able to make connections with precedents and photographers that came later, and have a greater enjoyment from looking at photographs.</p>

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<p>Phylo and Blake, thanks for your responses.<br>

Blake, you seem to be saying that the work is of importance in aesthetic sense once a viewer like myself who has sketchy knowledge of photographic history, had acquired the knowledge-base to appreciate Shore?<br>

Phylo, you seem to be referring to something more subtle and basic within this particular series that makes it aesthetically important, and that his influence on others outside of the period attaches a special visual relevance?</p>

<p>Is he going beyond the subject? Is he purposely picking an unremarkable subject because he is exploring something with a different kind of photographic significance? Can you look at the photos as abstracts, then step back and put the unremarkable scene back into it and get something out of it? I think Phylo makes an important point when he says the subject of some photographs is the photograph itself and not the contents of the photograph. That's not a way of historically locating the photograph, and not necessarily to look at its influence, it's a way of looking at the photograph itself.</p>

<p>I took an "experimental" film class way back in college. We saw a very shaky hand-held camera oriented film one day and several of the kids in the class said it made them nauseous. The filmmaker/teacher suggested that, instead of locating themselves inside the frame, they include the edge of the screen, the border, the frame, in their field of vision and experience, that they step outside of it, include everything, not just what was going on inside the frame, in their field of vision. He then showed the film 3 more times and no one threw up.</p>

<p>I think Shore is very accessible, with an easy popular appeal. His photographs are visually beautiful, and have been hugely influential. I thought you were being honestly a bit of a contrarian, or maybe disingenuous, asking for validation of the work of such a well understood and significant figure. If the work doesn't appeal to you it's okay of course, if it comes from an informed study of the work. But the work has been validated and canonized really. That's why I was suggesting going back to read about the acceptance of color art photography in the museum, and the huge significance of the work of Shore in this regard for example, and of curators like John Szarkowski at MOMA, etc. It will really help you to see contemporary art photography from an informed perspective. Your question is sort of the equivalent of not being aware of an elephant in a small room. I was suggesting starting with basic information and an open mind, reading about the significant figures and trends in the relatively short history of photography.</p>

<p>Stephen Shore was at the leading edge of exploring the non-spectacular (banal) at the time. Unlike Eggleston, he had an East Coast/NYC Warhol's Factory sensibility. It took some time for them to be appreciated because they were ahead of their time (the same thing happened to R. Frank, W. Eggleston and others). Herbert Marcuse said that true leading edge art would in effect, be invisible, unrecognized as such.</p>

<p>Shore was using the tool of the landscapist, the 8x10 camera, but in a socially contextualized environment. No illusions of paradise, virgin wilderness or external frontier. If you think about it, he was following in the conceptual footsteps of Atget, Evans, Frank and their descendants. The themes are, or should be familiar: The Road, Cars, Motels, Signs, small towns, his companions, etc. The difference is that he did this in <em>color </em>and in a real signature non-dramatic light that many, incuding Jay Maisel referred to as "dumb light". Shore also brought into the equation the personal journal trend that was also happening at the time (though most of that was being done with 35mm).</p>

<p>For those who have not seen the book, or want their memory refreshed:</p>

<p>http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?Catalog=AP472</p>

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<p>Another good reference about this kind of "school of photographers" from that period, with lots of examples besides Shore, is <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Color-Photography-Sally-Eauclaire/dp/0896591964">The New Color Photography</a></em>.<br>

<br /> But I agree that the "uncommon common" photograph can get a bit too common when it becomes a copy of a copy of a copy, like the many Ansel Adams genre b&w landscapes, etc...</p>

<p>John Updike, the novelist, set his stories in suburban-CT because (I think he stated this) he didn't want his work to rely on interesting settings. He intentionally chose insignificant, inconsequential (suburban) settings, yet his writing is luminous, gorgeous. Seems like Shore.</p>

<p>Shore was introduced to many (of us) by Camera Magazine (finely-produced Swiss/American mag) with the 1/77 issue. My hit at the time was that the plates were gorgeous, pure beauty (not the impression his work makes online for me...online it is too easily misunderstood as schtick. Interviewed, he said his favorite painter was Vermeer. I think associating him with a Warhol sensibility or any "school of photographers" misses the point.</p>

<p>Shore may have been an early adapter, but wasn't a "leading edge" of "banal" : Camera Magazine 8/70 was devoted to that theme (in B&W) and captured the attention of many of us...stimulating many to use 2475 Recording film for its beauty (rather than its speed). </p>

<p>In other words, I think Shore was continuing pursuit of a type of beauty that being pursued by many others, doing it in color. His merit doesn't have to do with "new," it has to do with beauty. Nothing like Warhol in that respect. Also, though I admire Maisel's work (like Pete Turner's) he must not have seen the dramatic light in the Shore work published in Camera Magazine.</p>

<p>...Luis is right about Shore's early association with Warhol (68' exhibition) but too much can be made of that point as I don't think many associate Andy with Vermeer, or with "beauty" in the Shore sense. For that matter, I think too many of us reduce Warhol's accomplishments to the stuff celebrated in the press (perhaps inadvertantly associating Shore with Campbell's Soup and Lou Reed).</p>

<p>Another factor: I suspect few have seen Shore's prints. As with most 8X10 photography (and recent MF and spliced digital, and panoramas), it loses most of its impact online, reduced to what are little more than oversized thumbnails. Camera Magazine's plates, color and B&W, did deliver the goods with full page, ultra-high-quality reproduction, just as they did with B&W (even though they don't equal the prints). Shore's work demonstrates the fundamental difference between "picture," "image," and "print," which is significant not just to theory but also to the future of photography. Shore's beauty is poorly served online. Work like Shore's is becoming reminiscent of platinum prints, in that very few moderns have ever seen them except as approximations in poor reproductions or online.</p>

 

<p><em>"Another factor: I suspect few have seen Shore's prints. As with most 8X10 photography (and recent MF and spliced digital, and panoramas), it loses most of its impact online, reduced to what are little more than oversized thumbnails." (John Kelly)</em></p>

<p>This is probably important. We all have memory of the common things he has photographed and common urban or country scenes with the presence of man. Sometimes arriving in a new city (like the ride from Heathrow to the city via a multiplicity of run down or rising neighbourhoods, or finding oneself in a typical but older suburb of a modern Canadian or American city) we see life in its various forms and associate that with common views of other places we know. Uncommon yet common.</p>

<p>The ability of the high resolution image (8 x 10, whatever) seen at large sizes to make those sites or atmospheres more clearly etched may be a large part of making the common uncommon. But that is mainly technical, in a sense. There may be more to the images than that (perhaps as period or place social commentaries, if not as a compositional tour de force?) but the small size reproductions don't help in allowing that quality to come through.</p>

<p>Lacking that experience (that even a book of photos may not present), it would be good to understand the context of the photography, such as what really is the photographer trying to do, and what more detailed critiques have been received of his work, for or against (we seem to receive mainly a quiet adulation of such work from most sources, rather than an appraisal of the redeeming qualities or where the work may be less powerful). In that sense, I have to agree with Starvy in regard to his reticences about these unarranged compositions of common places. I don't get a strong feeling that the photographer has thought much about what he is shooting (even about arranging some compositions), but I am most willing to be persuaded otherwise, willing to accept with positive argument that his approach and results (as well as those of other photographers of his genre) may be more uncommon than I think.</p>

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<p><em>"I don't get a strong feeling that the photographer has thought much about what he is shooting (even about arranging some compositions), but I am most willing to be persuaded otherwise, willing to accept with positive argument that his approach and results (as well as those of other photographers of his genre) may be more uncommon than I think." </em>...Arthur P.<br /> <em><br /></em><br /> You probably won't get that "strong feeling" from the Shore work with which I'm familiar unless you see the original prints.</p>

<p>I simply assert that the Shore work with which I'm familiar (original prints and Camera Magazine) is beautiful...it's color and light, not even secondarily involved with mundane factors like "composition," subjects, or the way they're framed. Or, maybe I'd say that Shore actively works to exclude "subject" and "composition" in order to get at what concerns him ... per John Updike's novels ... random link: http://www.salon.com/08/features/updike.html).</p>

<p>I associate Shore with van Gogh rather than with Picasso. van Gogh deals ravishingly with simple things. He doesn't depict madness (as hack critics maintain), he directly manifests beauty. He MAKES beauty. The work of Shore, van Gogh, and Picasso needs no "appraisal of ...redeeming qualities" because it needs no "redemption<br />" in the first place, especially for people who have not engaged much of the original work.</p>

<p>The work itself is the work. It is not the reproductions. It is not contained in or substantiated by words. Do consider reproductions and talk about them, but recognize that becomes a diversion on behalf of something other than curiosity when it asks unseen work to be "redeemed."</p>

<p>Incidentally, as someone who's seen a tremendous amount of work that was in love with imagery like Shores, the result of various photographer's love of various emulsions, I don't think anyone is done justice by containing him or them with "banality." The term served an important service when it identified significance in non-lovely, non-"arty" images...but it's lost its zip now that the "banal" is so prevalent.</p>

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<p>In that sense, I have to agree with Starvy in regard to his reticences about these unarranged compositions of common places. I don't get a strong feeling that the photographer has thought much about what he is shooting</p>

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<p>Which is exactly its draw to me, or how a photograph and photography can paradoxically erase the act of framing and composing in on one particular subject ( unlike how it used to be in painting, until painters like <a href="http://www.canvaz.com/caillebotte/caillebotte06.jpg">Caillebotte</a> ) The visual world <em>is</em> unarranged and unframed, with no edges around it to tie a composition in and a photograph(er) can as much reflect that besides undermining it. With the image being just one out of many possibilities, and within the photograph itself even other possibilities, other "frames". The photographer has thought / thinks as much about what he isn't shooting ( framing / arranging, in time and in composition ) as what he is shooting.</p>

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<p><strong>Phylo - "</strong>The visual world <em>is</em> unarranged and unframed, with no edges around it to tie a composition in and a photograph(er) can as much reflect that besides undermining it."</p>

<p>I would agree with the above in Nature. In man-made environments, not with the idea of "unarranged", even though the photographer re-arranges a lot of the time. I agree with the subframes thing, and with degrees of rigidity in composition being very significant in implying a plurality of other variants that, in effect, are not depicted.</p>

<p>Have you noticed though that in photography it's very natural and unavoidable to let all kinds of objects extend into the edges of a photograph in a way that wasn't done in painting? When you see a painting that uses that technique, that sort of lets things end midway into the edge as if there was an extension of the scene beyond the frame, it seems more modern and contemporary, or at least more photographic, enough to be startling.</p>

<p>Luis, with the visual world I meant the intentional or unintentional 'tree growing out of someones head', as a simple example, and not necessarily how those are actually relative ( in appeared arrangement or unarrangement ) to each other in the material world, be it man-made or nature. The visual exceeds that, in lines, shades, forms, color...</p>

<p>The ( photographic ) visual world isn't un-arranged as opposed to arranged. It just is, can be, or not. That's more what I meant when I said "un-arranged". States of arrangement don't apply that much to it. Besides points in time there's no point or line to start or to end a photograph with, like the marking of the horizon on a canvas is.<br /> Consider a painting made of 'someone with a tree growing outside of the head', it would be primarily conceptual, not visual, even if the painter saw exactly that, like the way a photographer placing / looking through his camera can.</p>

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<p>Have you noticed though that in photography it's very natural and unavoidable to let all kinds of objects extend into the edges of a photograph in a way that wasn't done in painting? - Blake</p>

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<p>Yes, and while painters like the one of the image I linked were influenced by photography to show / allude to that in their paintings too, photographers still can't escape the "crutch" of painting, or how painting - in composition, order, arrangement, essentially is or was before it became more "photographic". ( I'm not talking about early painters using photographic means or lenses ).<br /> But I don't think it's that or always unavoidable, to let all kinds of objects extend into the edges of a photograph. It depends on the genre / subject of photography.</p>

<p>IMO Shore doesn't deal in "environments" or "frames," he makes photographs that (from what I've seen) work mostly in prints and generally don't work in reproduction, and certainly not online. </p>

<p>My responses to Shore have to do with the fact that I've shot a fair amount of 8X10 and a huge amount of 4X5, printing both in Ektacolor (via interneg) and Ciba. When I see the objects that Shore produced (prints) I see from that perspective (B&W photographers who have souped their own do understand B&W photography differently from photographers who have not, for the same reason).</p>

<p>It's easy to mistake Shore's work for pictures "of" (eg pictures of environments). He is (IMO) working at a different level. Not "better," necessarily, but absolutely different.</p>

<p>I don't think considering Shore's prints as pictures of environments is different from considering van Gogh's work as paintings of environments. I think of van Gogh's work as beautiful painting.</p>

<p>John, while the photograph as a print is important, I think you're giving too much of a single importance to it. The <em>image</em> in the photograph can and does transcend the print and be experienced in any number of different and valid ways, be that online or in book, etc..I can even recal a particular photograph in my mind, and still see and experience its image, without it needing to be physically there.<br /> Once the photographic image <em>is</em>, it can be carried through any means, besides the physical print. After all, it's by looking through a print that we see its image on it, not by looking at it.</p>

<p>Those that have been following Shore's work newer than a few decades ago know he's been working with P&S digital cameras and making the Apple version of web books far more than prints of any kind. I agree with Phylo, though print quality, and by that I do not mean of a particular standard, but subservient to the image, matters (most of the time).</p>

<p><em>"I agree with Phylo, though print quality, and by that I do not mean of a particular standard, but subservient to the image, matters (most of the time)." </em> Luis G</p>

<p>Luis, I think I've figured out what you are trying to say.</p>

<p> By print quality you don't mean a particular standard, therefore you mean a non-particular standard (sounds like a non-idea idea). </p>

<p>And some unspecified non-standard standard makes the print subservient (by a non-particular non-standard) to the image except when it isn't subservient to that image (in general, irrespective the photographer, except presumably when the opposite applies). OK. I think I've got it.</p>

<p>Have you been reading Barthes again? </p>

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<p><em>"Once the photographic image is, it can be carried through any means, besides the physical print. After all, it's by looking through a print that we see its image on it, not by looking at it."</em> Phylo</p>

<p>Phylo (and Luis), the idea of "image" probably means the same thing for me as for you. But I don't print images, nor does a sculptor hammer them out, nor does a painter paint them, nor is there much reason to shoot 8X10 and print big, as Shore did, unless something in addition to image is intended. More than image.</p>

<p>From experience, 8X10 film can readily produce something beyond image. That big format can be approximated or surpassed digitally if the subject is static (a building for example) by stitching a bunch of files together and then printed. The point of both is to produce something beyond our ability easily to comprehend what's in front of us. It's challenging.</p>

<p>A sculptor works in marble or bronze or wood for some reason, when she could more easily work with play-doh. Sculpture students have been working digitally for a remarkably long time. Is <strong>Avatar </strong>directly comparable <strong>Stella's</strong> work? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stella</p>

<p>Lowest rez digicam, and recently iPhone photo, can be wonderful. I don't see inherent superiority in 8X10. They're different. <strong> </strong></p>

 

<p>I've never been a fan of Shore, and I suspect that the renewed interest in his work has more to do with the sentimental view of the popular culture contained in his photos. Replace those cool old Fords and Chevys with Focus, Prius and Accords and ask yourself whether what Shore is doing is really that special.</p>

<p>I really enjoy Shore's work. I enjoy these perfect compositions, that invite me to look closely all over the frame, that are just 'right'. I enjoy the subtle details and observations. And I enjoy the frequent humour and irony. They are photographs and a way of thinking I can relate to.</p>

 

<p>I think Shores "sentimental view of the popular culture" is not "contained in his photos" (per Paul Lewis). That seems an intellectualization (interpretation) rather than a response to the images. Second tier, indirect. Like responding to his work as if he reflects Andy Warhol.</p>

<p>Simon Croft's pleasure, his description of his own responses (somewhat different than mine because he's not me) seems first tier, direct. </p>