Monday, May 25, 2009

The photography of Stephen Shore.

Along with William Eggleston and Richard Misrach, Stephen Shore is one of my favorite photographers. His roadtrips across the United States during the early 1970's captured the vastness of the country as well as the simpleness of living in that time.

His view of the American vernacular, with depictions of gas stations, diners and roadside motels, was foretold by the photorealistic paintings of Richard Estes and Ralph Goings. Shores' absence of humans in his landscapes give the viewer a sense of loneliness, as if these places were void of human life.

His work has been an influence in my work for both use of roadside Americana imagery from the 1960's and 1970's and also for his sun bleached color palette.

You can see more of his work here and here.

















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2 comments:

  1. ToddyJune 4, 2009 at 11:32 AM

    Steven Shore once "failed" me in graduate school. It was an honest failure. I missed more than three seminars classes and that was readily spelled out as failure in the syllabus. The failure did not affect me as much as his teaching. A very good teacher of observation.

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  2. Joe VDBJune 17, 2009 at 12:29 PM

    Thanks for reminding me of this beautiful body of work.

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