"How America's Most Cherished Photographer Learned to See" / Stephen Shore with Peter Schjeldahl

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

2021 conversation between Stephen Shore and Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker :

How America’s Most Cherished Photographer Learned to See

For five decades, Stephen Shore has remade our vision of the country, largely by remaking his own.

www.newyorker.com

I have a subscription to The New Yorker, so I don't know if this has paywall or not.

10 extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me how to pronounce "Schjeldahl".

Sirius Glass · Feb 17, 2023

Sadly blocked. I cannot read itl

faberryman · Feb 17, 2023

10 extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me who anointed Steven Shore America's Most Cherished Photographer and why. Certainly significant, but cherished? And most cherished?

GregY · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
10 extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me who anointed Steven Shore America's Most Cherished Photographer and why.

Steven who ?

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
10 extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me who anointed Steven Shore America's Most Cherished Photographer and why.

It's just a title, written by someone paid to do that kind of stuff, and has absolutely no bearing on the essence of the article, which is very interesting.

One fascinating aspect of Shore's work is his constant exploration and renewal. He did 35mm, 4x5, 8x10 and now drone photography (as below). Every time he explores the possibility the medium gives him, and yet, each exploration ends up being unmistakably "Stephen Shore".

Certainly one of the most interesting photographers of our time.

MurrayMinchin · Feb 17, 2023

Spending the first 3 years of his career hanging out with Andy Warhol explains a lot.

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

This is from his new book, "Steel Town", a project he did in the late 70s.

MurrayMinchin · Feb 17, 2023

Sorry, but I find his work to be much like Warhol's, where you have to drink the Koolaid before understanding it. In other words, the images don't stand on their own as singular works of art without buying into the secret handshake.

MurrayMinchin · Feb 17, 2023

In his own words:

warden · Feb 17, 2023

Alex Benjamin said:
This is from his new book, "Steel Town", a project he did in the late 70s.

Thanks for the heads up about the New Yorker article, Alex. I enjoyed it and the linked essay as well. The image you shared pairs well with the article.

"...there was an extended period when I was interested in how cultural forces expressed themselves in the built environment. A writer can directly describe their perception of these forces, but photographers can’t. They can access them only to the extent that these forces manifest themselves visually. Well, if this was also in my thoughts, I also couldn’t explore it in the middle of a desert. So the explorations of content and structure not only guided where I would photograph but even exactly where to place the camera."

P.S. I miss Peter Schjeldahl, who is a good match for Shore. Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light is worth picking up.

Sirius Glass · Feb 17, 2023

MurrayMinchin said:
In his own words:

Thank for posting.

faberryman · Feb 17, 2023

The drone shot of those parking lots Alex posted doesn't do much for me, but I guess I lack the requisite artistic sensibilities to appreciate it.

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

warden said:
P.S. I miss Peter Schjeldahl, who is a good match for Shore. Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light is worth picking up.

Thanks for this. I'll have to order it. As John Berger, who I really like, Schjeldahl is not an easy read for me, but always worth it.

MurrayMinchin · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
The drone shot of those parking lots Alex posted doesn't do much for me, but I guess I lack the requisite artistic sensibilities to appreciate it.

No worries...I've gone to art school and feel the same way.

To be fair, like Warhol, his work does provoke a response, and much like in the celebrity world, any publicity is good publicity.

snusmumriken · Feb 17, 2023

Alex Benjamin said:
10 extra bonus points to anyone who can tell me how to pronounce "Schjeldahl".

Shell-darl.

What can I get with 10 points?

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
The drone shot of those parking lots Alex posted doesn't do much for me, but I guess I lack the requisite artistic sensibilities to appreciate it.

Having quite a few of his books and being an admirer of his work, I feel Stephen Shore's photographs work best when viewed not individually (with a few exceptions) but as part of their intended series.

Photographs from American Surfaces, Uncommon Places, Steel Town and this latest drone work (Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape) become much more interesting when you see them within their full set. Viewing the whole is when you start seeing what he's seeing in each individual scene but also understanding what he's after.

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

Alex Benjamin said:
Having quite a few of his books and being an admirer of his work, I feel Stephen Shore's photographs work best when viewed not individually (with a few exceptions) but as part of their intended series.

Photographs from American Surfaces, Uncommon Places, Steel Town and this latest drone work (Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape) become much more interesting when you see them within their full set. Viewing the whole is when you start seeing what he's seeing in each individual scene but also understanding what he's after.

To add: we have a tendency to judge individual photographs from our visual/emotional response to them instead of from our visual/emotional response to the whole.

It's like The Beatles White Album. If you just listen to "Why Don't We Do It In the Road" and judge the Beatles from that, you missing the point.

MattKing · Feb 17, 2023

What Alex said.
To use a musical - and perhaps dated - analogy, some work succeeds as a Top 40 hit, while other work gets better and better if you listen more than once to the contents of several albums.
And the musical appreciation deepens if you also listen to other artists in similar or complementary genres.
EDIT: Alex and I clearly are in a musical mood - we cross-posted.

warden · Feb 17, 2023

More of the drone images, which are excellent, can be seen here.

Getting high: a drone’s-eye view of the United States – in pictures

During the long periods of pandemic isolation, Stephen Shore rose to the challenge – and shot the arresting US landscape from way up above

www.theguardian.com

faberryman · Feb 17, 2023

Alex Benjamin said:
To add: we have a tendency to judge individual photographs from our visual/emotional response to them instead of from our visual/emotional response to the whole.

It's like The Beatles White Album. If you just listen to "Why Don't We Do It In the Road" and judge the Beatles from that, you missing the point.

MattKing said:
What Alex said.
To use a musical - and perhaps dated - analogy, some work succeeds as a Top 40 hit, while other work gets better and better if you listen more than once to the contents of several albums.
And the musical appreciation deepens if you also listen to other artists in similar or complementary genres.
EDIT: Alex and I clearly are in a musical mood - we cross-posted.

My experience is, to use a musical analogy, many albums have filler songs, which no amount of repeated listening will make anything but filler.

faberryman · Feb 17, 2023

warden said:
More of the drone images, which are excellent, can be seen here.

Getting high: a drone’s-eye view of the United States – in pictures

During the long periods of pandemic isolation, Stephen Shore rose to the challenge – and shot the arresting US landscape from way up above

www.theguardian.com

Those certainly rise above the parking lot photograph.

warden · Feb 17, 2023

snusmumriken said:
Shell-darl.

What can I get with 10 points?

From the NYT obit:

"Few critics could match Mr. Schjeldahl (pronounced SHELL-doll) for his intimate knowledge of New York’s art world, which he wrote about with undiminished enthusiasm for more than half a century."

MattKing · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
e

My experience is, to use a musical analogy, many albums have filler songs, which no amount of repeated listening will make anything but filler.

And sometimes what seems to be filler at the first grows on you over time.
It would be an unsatisfying world if everything seemed to be excellent at all times.

faberryman · Feb 17, 2023

MattKing said:
And sometimes what seems to be filler at the first grows on you over time.
It would be an unsatisfying world if everything seemed to be excellent at all times.

"Sometimes" being the operative word.

Alex Benjamin · Feb 17, 2023

faberryman said:
My experience is, to use a musical analogy, many albums have filler songs, which no amount of repeated listening will make anything but filler.

That may be true for your run-of-the-mill pop album, but not the case with The White Album. There's actually very few genuine masterpieces on that album — compared to, for example, Sgt. Pepper. Maybe "While my Guitar Gently Weeps", that's about it.

In fact, it works a lot like a modern photo album, i.e., as a series of musical "vignettes," in which the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

My experience is that there are a lot of great albums produced by great artists in the last 60 or so years and none have fillers.

"How America's Most Cherished Photographer Learned to See" / Stephen Shore with Peter Schjeldahl

Alex Benjamin