Stephen Shore: Uncommon places...revisting some via Googlemap

CropDusterMan · Mar 19, 2016

Stephen Shore is a photographer who I admire, and quite frankly, I can look at Uncommon Places
for hours. He's really taught me to look at the world differently over the years, and the other day,
I decided to revisit some of the locations some 40 years later via googlemaps and its street-view.

I find it absolutely fascinating how much each location can change over the passage of time...buildings
disappear, or facades change, streets have gone from cracked up pavement to newly paved gentrified
neighborhoods, streets are no longer small, but have become double lanes and often times, you look at
the work that's been done on some beautiful old buildings and they have become modern
and ugly...someones poorly thought out idea of a face-lift. Anyhow...was a fun exercise over coffee
the other morning.

Found this site and compared it to my book images. A few of the links for the original photos don't work, but some do...

http://virtuallyuncommon.tumblr.com/page/2

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 20, 2016

I've done the same thing myself...

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The Google Maps link in the above original post has been messed with by Google. It got moved down the highway a fair amount.

Here's the current most recent link that contains the same point-of-view as the small legend photo in the above original thread. The church (brown building with white roof) and cemetery (right side of the church) are dead center in the far distance. Click zoom twice to see them up close...

AA's tripod location for Moonrise in Google Street View (2014).

Ken

CropDusterMan · Mar 21, 2016

Ha! Ken I visited that one too.Lol. It took some time to find it because it had changed so much. Often times, it's the
trees that completely dwarf a location. I find it fascinating though, to look at a main street and compare then and
now, to see buildings that once had beautiful glass cornered large windows in the 1970's only to be bricked in
now with little regard to the overall look and design of a building. You wonder how many businesses have occupied
those spots over the years through good times and bad. Funny, but I often think photographers should be the ones
in charge of planning commissions in cities and landscape areas. How often (Maui comes to mind) do you come upon
a grand vista, absolutely stunning, only to then see power lines running through the scene or a cell tower on the summit
or a nasty group of "designer" (poorly designed) community homes at the base of the mountain. Grrr.
Good taste is a rare commodity these days.

DREW WILEY · Mar 22, 2016

Interesting how every single picture in Uncommon Places operated on the clash of pumpkin orange and poison cyan. There was some blue in there too.
But it was all based on exploiting the wretchedly idiosyncratic pallet of Vericolor at the time. In lesser hands it would been an abominable mess; but Shore managed to keep both the composition and the proverbial hue clash in a very balanced "tension", as he referred to it using flyfishing analogies. Memorable work, vintage 70's, and I too look at the book from time to time, though I emulate exactly zero of his style, and frankly, apart from his own work, detest both pumpkin and arsenical cyan.

CropDusterMan · Mar 23, 2016

Michael R 1974 said:
It's funny how tastes can differ. When it comes to this kind of work I've always LOVED that colour palette.

Yes, I agree...prime example:

CropDusterMan · Mar 23, 2016

Interesting, the re-issued Uncommon Places from 2003 had a lot more prints than the original version, as he felt the original book was incomplete in a way. I learned that Shore had first used a 4x5 for all the shots done in 1974, and the following year, he went to 8x10 to fully capture great distant detail in his work...it's interesting to compare '74 and onwards. I would love to see this work in massive prints, much like a Gursky show. Interesting connection between Gursky and Shore...

DREW WILEY · Mar 23, 2016

It was popular back then to make 8x10 contact prints, probably because most of these guys were still starving artists and couldn't afford commercial enlargements. And most were utterly wretched view camera technicians when they started. Not many of the prints would even look good enlarged. But a few of them steadily improved their skills. So no. I would not want to see many of these images massive myself. As for Gursky, everyone knows he digitally manipulates things. Therefore I have far more respect for Shore, because he had to bag the thing as it really was, with an impeccable sense of timing.

DREW WILEY · Mar 23, 2016

I got to see a lot of the early work by these guys. They were innovative, and some of the images are now downright iconic and nostalgic. Other practitioners have been utterly forgotten. It just wouldn't happen today. What they did in their time is to deliberately work within both the constraints
and idiosyncrasies of color negative film, in a sense of rebelling against the saturated colors of people like Eliot Porter. They established their own understated working pallet. Today with Fauxtoshop, anybody thinks they can do anything with color; but it is a wretched substitute for mixing real pigments. But most color photographers don't have a clue; they just want visual noise. Once you can do anything creative you want, you can't really do anything. Restraint is an asset. Otherwise, go to some noisy digital action flick and eat greasy popcorn with thirteen year olds.

DREW WILEY · Mar 23, 2016

Well, enjoy the books, because all those 70's Ektacolor prints have probably long since yellowed or faded into oblivion.

CropDusterMan · Mar 23, 2016

Hey Drew, tell us...what do you really think of Ektacolor and Vericolor.

Theo Sulphate · Mar 23, 2016

CropDusterMan said:
Yes, I agree...prime example:
View attachment 153107

I love the mood and look of that photo: the architecture of the bank, the Kiddie Shop sign, the sun-bleached worn streets, the guy at the corner, the parking meter, the haze... It's like a Richard Estes photorealism painting!

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/16/369635057/painting-or-photograph-with-richard-estes-it-s-hard-to-tell

I must have dozens of photos like Beverly & La Brea, taken around there, with the same composition, and even before 1975. Little did I know I have an undiscovered stash of artistic gems (also, see my signature).

DREW WILEY said:
... What they did in their time is to deliberately work within both the constraints and idiosyncrasies of color negative film, in a sense of rebelling against the saturated colors of people like Eliot Porter. They established their own understated working pallet. Today with Fauxtoshop, anybody thinks they can do anything... Once you can do anything creative you want, you can't really do anything. Restraint is an asset...

Well stated.

DREW WILEY · Mar 24, 2016

What I find so amusing is how, when the "New Topographics" theme caught on, the curators would describe how the practitioners were trying to create
little scenes like "jewels" by resorting to 8x10 contact prints. Nonsense. Most of them were just too poor to enlarge them, and also tended to waste a
lot of paper in the learning curve. Once a few of them found reliable funding, they starting paying somebody else to print their work larger.
Today it's just the opposite. Everybody wants to take some itty-bitty smudge of an old negative or modern piexelated postage stamp and make a mural out of it. Or else they do want to buy an 8x10 camera and think that after a weekend of use they will have work worthy of giant prints. Trends. Fads. It's amusing. But one thing the 8x10 did do for people like Shore was teach discipline. It's not a system for machine-gunners.

Sirius Glass · Mar 24, 2016

CropDusterMan said:
Interesting, the re-issued Uncommon Places from 2003 had a lot more prints than the original version, as he felt the original book was incomplete in a way. I learned that Shore had first used a 4x5 for all the shots done in 1974, and the following year, he went to 8x10 to fully capture great distant detail in his work...it's interesting to compare '74 and onwards. I would love to see this work in massive prints, much like a Gursky show. Interesting connection between Gursky and Shore...

Since I have only lived 48 years in Los Angeles I found the photographs and the photographic approaches very interesting. Thank you.

DREW WILEY · Mar 24, 2016

Well, a lot of that style began in So Cal, not in NY. Some of the early birds have long been forgotten; and most of those were wretched color printers.
Up here in the Bay, Misrach eventually got traction, though with color shots taken in SoCal desert. He didn't print his own color work. I know who did,
at least till they got fed up with him. Baltz was a black and white practitioner, more pretentious than solid in my opinion. Probably the person who has
sustained that style the most effectively was Meyerowitz, though he had his share of monumental bellyflops too. Experimenters. You have to give them kudos for courage, and for being willing to waste a lot of money printing practically everything, worthy of a print or not. An excellent example of
what Meyerowitz has done later in life is his color Tuscany work. Really more poetic than "New Topographics", though that has always been his bent.
Shore was a bit of a youthful prodigy. He hit his stride early, and it is that early work I find the most appealing. Some of those images look awful
printed large. Maybe up to 16x20. The little contact prints did feel right.

Stephen Shore: Uncommon places...revisting some via Googlemap

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency