Emulating Stephen Shore?

[ShaneS]

Some of you recently read about my appreciation of the work of Stephen Shore and in that thread I promised to share some images that I have made along those lines.

Here are two for discussion and your kind (or not so kind, but constructive) C&C:

Auto Parts:



Bowling:



Thanks in advance!

[Shadowman]

The first image you are standing too far away, the action should have been on the fellow working. On the second image, I think the subject is the degradation of the facility and for that it is an interesting capture. Nice efforts.

[FootLoose]

I haven't seen a lot of Shore's work, but enough to understand what you are trying to do, Shane, and these two look pretty good to me. Contrary to John's suggestion, I wonder if you had pulled back a bit further you might have caught more of the power lines in #1 - so that there is a grid in the sky?

[ShaneS]

John, you have an eagle eye! I had to go back and find the guy working in the image as the shot before had him walking across the lot and I thought he had exited the frame completely but the time I took this shot.

The purpose of the shot was to show the environment and lovely sign rather that the worker.

Greg, I played with the crop of this image quite a bit and agree with you about the power lines but a parked car encroached the frame on the left and I made the choice to eliminate that distraction and lost some of the sky/power lines. I might have to find a higher vantage point to get the image we both envision as I also cropped out a fair bit of the street in front of the shop for this composition.

I guess one could call these environmental portraits of the city 'landscape' that is slowly being lost to development and often neglect as John pointed out.

[Manfred M]

I suspect Shore would have handled both images a bit differently. While he seems to be almost nonchalant about people in his urban landscape work, so I expect he would have left the guy working almost invisible (as you have) or would have waited until he was totally out of the shot. The overhead wires would have been a main part of his composition and he would have positioned them as strong compositional elements in the sky. He would have framed the shot so the bit of building on the left in the background would have been outside of the composition and likely would have framed the left border along the side of the main building. Often when he shoots square on, when the building is the main element of the image

I don't think he would have taken the second shot at all, at the time you did. He uses a strong blue sky as a compositional element, and the washed out sky in this image means he likely would have come back when the sky was stronger. I also suspect he would have shot this more square on.

[ShaneS]

Manfred, I know you aren't a fan of Shore's work so I do appreciate you taking the time to analyze it and my attempt to emulate his viewpoint. Your points are well taken and I will give them some more thought then next time I head out to make images.

My only other comment is that even though I want to emulated his style to a certain extent (and you made me consider whether it is a combination of style and subject matter and how to weigh those two things) I will never be him or see the world the way he does. Just like there will never be another Ansel Adams, I cannot, nor do I want to be another Stephen Shore. (We can all change the names to suite our tastes and reflect our inspirations) But I will take that inspiration and run with it all while putting my own spin on it. I may find success or failure but it will lead me to a more refined vision of how I want to present the world photographically.

My work may or may not be to everyone's liking and I struggle with whether that is something to strive for anyway...

[flashback]

Shane,
Let me first point out that the only images of Shore that I've seen are those that are readily available on line. That said I'd like to add my 2 cents.
While many (most) of his images are lacking in people, there are some people in some of his images so I think your first image doesn't 'violate' any Shore dictums, as shown here and here

As for him making the overhead lines more compositionally involved, that too doesn't always seem to be the case, as shown here and here.
Regarding that bit of building, and I'm paraphrasing here but, in an interview with him he said (I'm paraphrasing here) that, for example in a landscape image it would say one thing, but if he were to back up a couple inches and show a bit of guardrail, then that would change the image as it shows the influence of man. Likewise in another comment, when asked (again, I'm paraphrasing) did it make a difference if the car was two inches away from the border or if the border cut the car. Shore's response was that it made no difference in his image, it was a personal choice. Perhaps it was his intuition but in any case he didn't think that it was a big deal. This image, at least to me, strongly suggests that the left hand side of the image was of no importance to him, otherwise I suspect he would have framed it differently. This image further seems to show his relative indifference to the edge. I do agree about the shooting of a building straight on in that it does seem to be a repeating theme of his.

Regarding your second image, the color of the sky, he has way too many photos of grey, cloudy or washed out skies to make the 'blue sky' any kind of rule. He does appear to indeed feature brilliant blue skies in his shots but I suspect it has more to do with local meteorological conditions than it does compositional dictates. This shot, as well as this one seems to show that a straight on shot wasn't always in his playbook.

I'm not doing this simply to contradict Manfred. I think some of his conclusions may not be totally, or always correct. I'm not even sure that Shore's own assessment of his images from 15 or 20 years earlier were as spot on as he might want us to think. Even he says (again paraphrasing) that in order to for him to teach photograph and seeing photographs, he first had to learn to articulate his own choices over the years. It's a neat option to have, to basically define and invent your style, years after the fact. Almost, in fact, as if he had reversed engineered his comments to fit with his existing body of work.

I've found that the way, the manner, the words that are used to describe or define 'art', including photographs, involves some of the most convoluted and nonsensical sentences I've come across outside of legal writings and boilerplate. There is a short essay in Shore's Uncommon Places at aperture.com, from that I have extracted the following quote;
"Approaching his subjects with cool objectivity, Shore in these images retains precise internal systems of gestures in composition and light, through which a parking lot emptied of people, a hotel bedroom, or a building on a side street assumes both an archetypal aura and an ambiguously personal importance." Yay I dunno what's being said here.

So Shane, personally I think you are very close in concept and execution in showing Shore's influence on you in these images. (I would say the same about the Modern Design buildings in your other post). Other than perhaps the difference in color depth, brightness and saturation I think you've come as close or closer to his style than you may have thought.

After becoming aware of Shore, while I don't yet know that I can say I'm any kind of a fan of his work, I have to admit a bit of a flash of inspiration he had in what he shot and how he shot it. On the other hand, I have no idea what's going on with his Instagram posts. Al l can say is the best part of those images are the comments that people leave. Based on the level of amazement (for the most part) for the images by the posters/fans they seem fairly easy to hoodwink.

So Shane, if riffing of of Shore's style is a stepping off point, or it becomes a fundamental cornerstone of your future work, I don't see that you've gone wrong or picked badly.

[ShaneS]

Jack, I am honored that you took the time to look at and consider these images and the ones in my other thread in light of Stephen's Shore's work. It took a lot of time and effort to pull together all those links so thank you!

I really like the directness of his point of view some but of his subject matter does leave me a bit cold (some of the Instagram work for example). It's funny how folks seem to find a reason to admire the work of others in such a fanatical way isn't it (Apple products come immediately to mind)?

I am in agreement with you about the wording use in the Aperture link - really, what does all that mean? The art world does have a way of using words that makes one scratch their head sometimes and that example is a doozy!

I will be spending some more time with the links that you provided and am waiting for my copy of Uncommon Places to arrive at the library for pickup so I can see some of the work outside the digital realm.

Lastly, I want to point out to others that are reading this thread these kind words that you wrote:

... if riffing of of Shore's style is a stepping off point, or it becomes a fundamental cornerstone of your future work, I don't see that you've gone wrong or picked badly.

I think that we are all inspired by different sources and different artists at varying times in our development as a photographer. Finding those inspirational people or works can be a challenge and if your view of the world doesn't always follow the masses and it can be a struggle to find those who appreciate the resulting work or even give it honest consideration on its own merits. We are all "riffing" away at presenting our own view of the world so I encourage others to "riff" away and see where it takes you...

[Manfred M]

Shane - being influenced by someone else's work can have a wide meaning; anything from actively tying to duplicate a style to the opposite and attempting to do the opposite of what a particular photographer is doing and just about anything in the middle.

I think any serious photographer does try to develop a style and the approaches they use to get there will tend to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. I have always liked strong, vivid colors in my work and have tried many approaches to getting this type of result and I definitely know that my style is not to everyone's taste.

I know that I started out as someone who was very interested in landscape / urban landscape photography, and still really enjoy that aspect, but I find that over the past few years I started to shoot more and more people shots; not so much as a stand-alone genre, but rather from a sense of completeness. People live / work in these landscapes I enjoy shooting, so I started to study the interaction of the two; how landscapes / geography influence how people live and consequently how these people impact the environment they are in. To me, that was a really surprising direction that almost evolved without me realizing I was spending as much time, if not more time engaging and shooting people. Who knows what new ways I will continue to explore photography.

I suspect that you will find the same thing. You are not Stephen Shore and will never be; but that doesn't mean you won't shoot things he does and start exploring subjects in the way he has done, other than some of his people shots that see to influence you much the same was as they affect me.

[ShaneS]

One never knows where the evolution will take us Manfred, we just need to keep our minds and hearts open to the possibilities and shoot away.

Thank you for sharing your evolution so far...it is very obvious that you enjoy what you do and it comes through in the lovely work that you kindly share with us here.

[rpcrowe]

What bothers me about image #1 is that the image left side of the building has strong leading lines, leading to nowhere but, taking "my" eye away from the major portion of the building. I cannot speak for anyone else but this is how I looked at the image...

[ShaneS]

I see what you mean Richard. This building in on my list of locations to re-shoot.