Photographer Research I: Stephen Shore

STEPHEN SHORE

The artist I have chosen for my photographer research is Stephen Shore. Stephen Shore is an American photographer, known for his photographs of banal scenes and objects in America. He has been shooting photographs for a long time, beginning from the 1960s, where he shot in black and white, before transitioning to colour film and photography. In 2014, he also began shooting digital images on Instagram.

The series of work that I am choosing to focus on is Uncommon Places, a distillation of Shore’s photographic journey across America that spanned a decade. Here are some works from the 60-odd photos in the series:

Lookout Hotel, Ogunquit, Maine, July 16, 1974

Broad Street, Regina, Saskatchewan, August 17, 1974

Michael and Sandy Marsh, Amarillo, Texas, September 27, 1974

I really enjoy the candid quality of his images, some of which are so raw that it feels almost tactile, as if you could imagine being in that space and what it was like to experience that moment in time. As Shore says, “I asked myself if I could structure the picture in a way that communicated my experience standing there, taking in the scene in front of me.”

He views each image as a problem to solve and the problem is finding a way to provide maximum clarity in the image. Perhaps it is because his image-making technique is so intentional and meticulous, that each image, although extremely mundane, feels contemplative. He draws our attention to the experience of just Being in a space. 

Presidio, Texas, February 21, 1975

Room 125, Westbank Motel, Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 18, 1973

For my own works, I want to apply this idea of photographing as ‘constructing an experience’. I think his photographs are so engaging because each image provides so much visual information, but in a purposeful manner that invites the viewer to study the scene as if they were part of it. I am also interested in the function that photography plays in his work, in which the photographs act almost as an index to his own personal experience of the world. 

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