Stephen Shore "Uncommon Places"

SHORE 1973, Ironwood, Michigan

SHORE 1976, Cherry Street, Fort Worth, TX

SHORE 1973, Front St, Ashland, WI

SHORE 1973, Farm East of Tamarack, Minn, 210

SHORE 1973, Dunes Motel, US-97, Bend, Oregon

All photographs above are the copyright of Stephen Shore, taken from his book "Uncommon Places" as seen at http://www.303gallery.com/artists/stephen_shore/index.php?exhid=98&p=images

"I don't expect someone to look at this and have any particular sense of what I did in my life. But what it is about is my explorations; my travels through looking."- Stephen Shore (about the above works in an interview with SeeSaw Online Photography Magazine).

Stephen Shore is an American photographer most commonly known for his colour photographs made during his travels around the United States. He was interested in photography from an early age, and at the age of 24 became only the second person to have a solo exhibit of their work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of Shore's many books, "Uncommon Places", highlights his travels around the USA, and it is these images that have caught my eye with regard to influencing my work on this term's project. For starters, Shore made all of these works using colour film, either 35mm or large format (5x4/10x8). It is interesting to see how the colours have come across in the different images, and how the different weather and constantly changing natural lighting changes the mood and tonal ranges of the photographs. For example, in "Dunes Motel" and "Ironwood, Michigan", the sky is thick with cloud and from the water on the ground it appears to have been raining. As a result, the colours in the images, from the greenery to the brightly lit road signs and cars, stand out against the dull greys and overcast sky. In comparison, Shores images "Farm East of Tamarack" and "Front St, Ashland" are much brighter, but consist of a mostly similar tonal range. It is interesting to compare how different times of day and different weather can affect an image so clearly, and points out to me that the use of, and indeed, how I use natural lighting in my own images is crucial; I need to seriously think about what sort of mood I want my images to highlight.

Examining how Shore has explained his work in the book "Uncommon Places" is extremely interesting to my thoughts about my own work. As seen above, Shore has said in an interview with an online photography magazine that he doesn't expect people to look at these particular works and understand his life or his reasons behind creating them. Thinking about my own work, I can adopt this view by Shore because my work (although it differs to Shore's in that I am photographing places I know rather than places I travelled to) , is something that only I (although it could be argued that the residents of my neighborhood might too) can understand. I am not creating these works for others to understand what has happened in my life or what might happen, I am simply producing work based on a cherished memory, something I want to remember, while exploring the notion of change within my own life, this is a very personal project, even if others may not get that from viewing the photographs- I read them differently to how others might, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.