Stephen Shore - Elements

[pdmoylan]

Just ran quickly into B&N (thank god they still exist), and happened upon Shore’s “Elements”. A LF book with few examples, mostly of quiet, unobtrusive color landscapes, symmetrical, and mostly with centered prominent objects/subjects. A few humans scattered.

Saturation has been viciously reduced just short of monochrome, subtle hues, a throwback to Meyerwitz' Cape Light but with perhaps a notion of non-solipsism. Sparse and elemental may be a more proper description. Low contrast throughout, suggesting color negative film in dull overcast light, throwing virtually no shadows.

The “scheme” is in stark contrast to the ridiculously over saturated landscapes we can’t seem to escape on Flickr, Instagram etc. Rather, a relatively thin sampling of images in this “genre”, I would have preferred a book which 2 sections, the first with Elements, the 2nd a selection from”Details”, a series of images taken with his first MF digital, a Hasselblad X1D. Though there may have been some promulgation of the camera’s use at the behest of the manufacturer, much of his latter work are images regarder pres de les pied, paysages j’allais fair marcher sur.

This new book is iconoclastic in its approach and appears somewhat purposeless other than to show how unvivid LF images can be printed.

However, it may be considered evolutionarily instructive in the life of a once trend setting social photographer who finds equal comfort in finding a distinctive LF approach, whether in city, country or open space, but with age is departing from the prowess of the ego, and depicting his now life in fading elements. The images if I recall correctly are mostly from the 80s, so interesting how he has chosen these to present now.

The book is worth an interview of the photographer.

[Drew Wiley]

I dunno. People fall into a particular groove, and his was the soft off-color Vericolor look of the "new topographics" of the 70's, but with his own particular mix of muted spice. This instance looks a little bit loosened up with perhaps a pinch of Eggleston influence, and not 8X10 gear anymore, but unmistakably still Stephen Shore in other respects. I certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as harsh as the above comments. Iconoclastic, nope. Just a color strategy moulded to a different era, and which couldn't afford dye transfer prints. He got imprinted to the look of old Ektacolor C prints, most of which are probably now all faded out. I remember a few of his.
Certainly not masterpieces of darkroom technique, but effective. Later he had a pro lab print them.

His color sense is actually pretty sophisticated. He juggles "little" quite well, just like Meyerowitz. I often find that refreshing given the sheer noise of undiscerning over-saturation everywhere around us these days. And I think I can state that objectively because I don't belong to that particular school of "non-color" color at all.

His use of green is just a default to what previous color neg films did (or actually didn't do). But he often successfully bounces the handball off those wretched poison greens by offsetting them with discrete amounts of equally wretched off-tans and pumpkinized yellows - what a house painter or interior decorator would term abominable clash; but he got away with it due to his careful reserve. Clever. Not my cup of tea, but clever. His earthtones are cadaverish. And being almost insulting to photographic color was indeed a ticket to the art world at one time. A past era, but he still has admirers.

[Michael R]

Love his stuff.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh, if the ole Vericolor L were still around, or even Fujicolor 160S in sheets. It takes some serious film palette idiosyncrasies. I remember quite well when the first wave hit. They were all starving contact printers. Some like Divola were absolutely wretched craftsmen with both a camera and in printing. Meyerowitz stuck with it until he got what he wanted. Shore was showing promise and getting attention. Here on the West Coast, Misrach was doing his best to break longstanding conventions and market homogenized mud as color. All gravitated toward pro labs soon enough. I knew some of the actual printers. Every now and then I'll pull out one of the old books - I have a decent selection of them - and look at that era in context. A lot of interesting work transpired and a handful of iconic images, but also one heck of a lot of bellyflops. They were certainly experimenters, and deserve medals of bravery for that. You should have seen some of the prints that never made it to the books; gosh knows why anyone kept them; maybe they didn't.

Some of the high auction prices, for Misrach in particular, baffle me, especially given the fact that some of those old C prints have probably already lost 80% of their lifespan. Digitally remastered knockoffs just don't look the same; but that is what Eggleston is largely doing, and losing much of the charm of his images by doing so.
Meyerowitz is having many of his early street shots remastered in dye transfer in Germany, and that's another thing entirely, because that's where he started out - relatively saturated and 35mm. And despite the stereotypes, a lot of Eggleston's iconic early work was quite saturated too if one saw it in actual DT print fashion rather than books. A lot of interesting history here; but I'm an outsider looking in. I've never worked in those same styles.