Stephen Shore

Sha-Mar Beauty Salon, Chestnut Street, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1973 

Bridge Street, Mexico, Maine, July 30, 1974

Stephen Shore is an American photographer, one of his main influences on his work is Walker Evans with his snapshot aesthetic. In a large amount of Stephen's photographs everything is in focus which gives shows that everything in the frame is of equal importance, removing visual hierarchy. He set about travelling around America photographing things that he saw, these shots are very much considered though he wanted to have the appearance that they were snapshots that he didn't take much time to think about/set up, as to be honest and simple.
I am mainly looking his series Uncommon Places, in this series his approaches his subjects with objectivity and retains precise internal systems of gestures in composition and light. For this project he used a view camera to take these photographs; Stephen says that he chose the view camera as it describes the world with unparalleled precision as it has a slow and deliberate working method that it requires to be used which leads to conscious decision making. Here he has documented his exploration across North America and how the culture in America was changing, along with how a photograph renders the segment of time and space in its scope. This project started in 1973 and continued till 1979.
Within his work i have found that there is a focus on buildings and streets that he has been travelling through, these photographs have been taken from a distance so that you can see more than just the building, you get a sense of its surroundings. Though what is photographed is completely mundane and something you may typically see on a normal day it makes you stop and appreciate them; all have their own functions and uses, for example supermarkets, general stores and houses, these are a part of our daily life and things that are important to all yet can easily be taken for advantage. Each of these places have their own personality to them, people have decorated them to make it appealing to themselves and others and in these photographs you can see how each contrasts from one another, none is exactly the same.






Photographs above taken from:
Uncommon Places
Hudson Valley
Ukraine

Sources:
http://stephenshore.net/photographs.php?menu=photographs
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/09/stephen-shore-america-colour-photography-1970s
https://newrepublic.com/article/115243/stephen-shore-photography-american-surfaces-uncommon-places
http://seesawmagazine.com/shore_pages/shore_interview.html