Shore's Transparencies

It may be hard now to imagine a time when people didn’t routinely shoot photos of meals. But until just a few decades ago the practice was rare. Stephen Shore was perhaps the first major photographer to go there. Beginning in the early 1970s, while on various photographic road trips, he seldom left a restaurant table unphotographed. Food was just one small component in his daily captures, along with motel rooms, dirty clothes, parking lots, toilets, ceilings, shops, nightstands, appliances, and all the other artifacts of his domestic explorations. Everything was fair game, his appetite for material seemingly insatiable. 

So it’s fitting that a dinner photo introduces the hefty new Shore book Transparencies: Small Camera Works 1971-1979 (Mack, 2020). It may be the only such one in the book, but it sets the tone for what’s to come. By showing an ordinary fast-food Mexican taco/enchilada combo, split by beans and rice, harshly flashed, and, well, downright ugly despite the nicely choreographed blue napkin and green tabletop, Shore establishes his credentials. “I’m not picky,” he seems to be saying, “It’s open season on any subject.”

Of course other photographers had taken aim at the quotidian before Shore. But their efforts were typically highbrow. Think of Weston’s Pepper No. 30 or Siskind’s Gloucester glove, for example, both the product of men seeking grandeur in the mundane. Shore’s aesthetic, which would eventually come to dominate fine art photography, was a deliberate effort to avoid these modernist trappings. Instead he looked to Ed Ruscha’s deadpan factuality for guidance. As Britt Salvesen explains in the book’s afterword, Shore mined the vernacular for material. Inspired by postcards, commercial signage, and snapshots, he developed a direct, non-fussy style which stripped away any highbrow pretentions to framing, lighting, or the picturesque. “Some photographers go out and want to make beautiful photographs," Shore once told Gil Blank. "I think that puts the cart before the horse. Good photographs are the by-product of some other exploration, or some other intention." 

Shore’s approach proved prescient, and we’re still dealing with the aftermath. The idea that image is secondary to intention is now the zeitgeist. Meanwhile, Shore is busy mining his early archives. Transparencies is the merely latest in a recent slew of books to explore them. A new edition of American Surfaces is due soon. I’m guessing other books may follow. The more the better, as far as I’m concerned. It’s rather amazing to look back and realize that none of these early photos were published as books contemporaneously. The first edition of American Surfaces didn’t arrive until 1999, and it wasn’t until 2005 that a more comprehensive edit came along. So if a book world recounting is overdue, I say bring it on.

Transparencies focuses on the mid-seventies, the period just on the heels of American Surfaces and when Shore was transitioning to the view camera. That larger format work would eventually produce the project for which he is still best known, Uncommon Places. But even while consumed by that project, he hadn’t quite given up on 35 mm. True, he’d ditched his trusty snapshooting Rollei 35. But in its place: a Leica M2, a handheld workhorse. It went everywhere with him, stocked with Kodachrome. It’s fun to browse through Uncommon Places now realizing this duality. Shore probably had a Leica on his shoulder as he made that famous photo, and this one, and so on. 

How did that Leica see differently? The book shows a sampling of what Shore found, 112 photographs, generously sized, without captions, preceded by a miniature prologue of highlights (leading with the Mexican dinner photo). Transparencies compares with Uncommon Places in the ways one might expect. Beginning with a shaky series of indistinct road shots, the photos exude the loose energy of 35 mm. Some frames are cockeyed, or seen through a windshield, or suffer from camera shake, or are helped by it. There are generally more pedestrians caught in Transparencies than in Uncommon Places, though that might be a function of editing as much as format. And whereas Shore using a tripod could stop down his aperture to get entire scenes in focus, his 35 mm depth of field was often restrained by slow film and unreliable lighting. 

Even though the work was shot concurrently, there’s seemingly only one scene shot by both cameras. That’s a boat harbor in Miami in 1975, huddled under a massive highway interchange. Britt Salvesen’s afterword offers an instructive comparison of the two photos —one photo is flat, the other deep— but leaves the reader wanting more. Can that be the only pairing? It’s hard to believe there aren’t others. A moot point in any case, since they don’t appear here. 

With no other direct comparisons, the reader looks to the work for hints of Shore’s thinking. Transparencies is sequenced chronologically, and as we move through the seventies some familiar themes arise. One change which becomes immediately apparent is the transition to outdoors. Whereas most of American Surfaces featured indoor snapshots, Shore’s Leica found much of its material in public settings, presumably lured there alongside his view camera. The change in backdrop seems to echo a broader switch in Shore’s approach, from internalized snapshots of a very personal nature toward the dispassionate open landscapes typical of New Topographics. Whether the Leica work was “a parallel iteration of an iconic vision… like a piece of music played in a new key,” as Mack describes it, or simply the waning efforts of a photographer whose style had already moved on, the results are fascinating.

The formalism of Uncommon Places manifests more and more as the reader wades deeper into Transparencies. The opening photos are blurred and dreamy, but they quickly firm up. Soon we see storefronts shot head on, alleys opening into distant vistas, delicately composed parking lots, an affinity for cars, pavement, signs and vernacular material. There’s even a brief taste of Europe before the book returns stateside. By the time late in the book when the reader encounters a street corner fronted by plywood walls, angled just so, the world has shifted convincingly toward Uncommon Places. 

Regardless of camera, whatever Shore photographed in the 1970s was with an intense visual hunger. It’s the same motivation fueling all great photographers and all lasting works, that restless need to swallow the world with a lens. “I wanted to be visually aware as I sent through the day,” he is quoted in American Surfaces. “I started photographing everyone I met, every meal, every toilet, every bed I slept in, the streets I walked on, the towns I visited. Then, when the trip was over, I just continued it.” With Transparencies, we finally have sense of where that continuance led: not very far from the present.

Note: This is the full "Director's Cut" of this piece, initially published here in abridged form.

Sunbather

The current Stephen Shore retrospective at MoMA looks great, but unfortunately it's 3,000 miles away. So I've been making due with the show catalog, which is great. I can't think of too many other monographs organized alphabetically like an encyclopedia. Factory, Fashion, Food, Gallatin County, Montana...The topics come in a sort of ordered shuffle, perfect for a scrambled Gen Xer like myself. It's the same reason I alphabetize my socks. It rejuvenates a body of work which might feel too familiar if ordered chronologically.

Forget it.

Browsing the book sent me down a new rabbithole of Streetview sleuthing. As longtime readers know I went through a heavy period of Shore rephotography about ten years back before finally kicking the habit. Somehow this image escaped my re-photographic impulse during the first wave. 

El Paso St. is a great photo and one of Shore's streetiest images. In the new MoMA book a few important pictures are singled out for a lengthy critique by David Campany, and this is one of them: "A photograph that has been structured to feel like a world unto itself is, in a way, a negation of the cutting that is a fundamental aspect of the medium. Or, more accurately, it is a disavowal of it..." 

The review went on but I couldn't understand it. Something about cutting corners or disavowing that act. Who knows. I was curious how this corner is cut now so I tracked it down. The title gives away the street name and Mills St. is visible in the right side of the frame. Thus finding the intersection in Streetview was straightforward. Here's how it looks today from roughly the same vantage point.

Streetview can't visit the exact location, which is just behind the frame to the left. But this is approximate enough to get the general gist. If this view is any indication, El Paso is now far more boring and ugly than it was in 1975. But of course photos can lie, even when they have no author. Maybe especially then.

Depending on which version you have, there are only one to three Uncommon Places photos from my home state of Oregon. Shore shot them on consecutive days, July 20th and 21st, 1973, while traveling south on US 97 down the state's bulging gut. The best known is US 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon.

For the non-Oregonians the mountain depicted is Mt. Hood, Oregon's tallest point and one of the more iconic peaks in the west. But where exactly is that wasteland behind it? The photo's title US 97 offers a clue, but that's a long piece of highway. There's no exact address in the caption, not many features in the background, and a lot of central Oregon looks pretty similar. All of which I'd found daunting during my first rephotography plunge. But the new Shore book had given me a second wind. Streetview, start your engine.

The shading on the billboard scaffolding indicates that the photo looks north. This is odd since Shore was traveling south at the time. He must've pulled a Frances McDormand U-Turn at the weird sign. In any case the shadows eliminated half my search, since I didn't need to look south. Aiming north I started at the stateline and Streetviewed my way up 97 one mouseclick at a time until I found the spot. Bingo! It was about 10 miles up, halfway between California and Klamath Falls.

The billboard is long gone but the gate, fencing, and telephone poles are the same, as is the distant horizon. Looking at this photo I'm glad we have Shore's photo to enjoy instead of Streetview. The lighting and framing here leave a lot to be desired. But of course authored photos sometimes lie worse than the others.

Two up, two down. Next up was the most problematic image yet, Shore's Merced River, Yosemite Valley, August 13, 1979. 

I've written about this photo a few times on B, once using it as an example to test online color variation, and once about the print at my friend Bruce's home (he's since moved, nearly to El Paso, before settling in Mexico). Not only is it one of my favorite Shore photos it's one of my favorites by anyone. The view is ambiguous. It's hard to pick out any landmarks or direction. Unlike many Yosemite photos there's no drama, no magic. It's just a lonely beach somewhere in the valley. Maybe that equals magic. Or drama. Or maybe it just equals sunbathing. 

Fortunately Christian Storm had already done some of the Streetview legwork. His Virtually Common Tumblr showed Shore's scene in 2014, shot from a bridge over the Merced. This was helpful but still didn't pin down the view.

David Campany's analysis proved to be a red herring: "On the hazy horizon, he included Half Dome, perhaps as a nod to Adams, but to integrate the mountain into his own picture, Shore mirrored its distinctive profile with that of a tree at the extreme right of the frame." 

Hmmm. Anyone who spends a few seconds with this photo will see that Half Dome isn't in it. But I'm slow and it took me a while to conclude this. I thought at first that Half Dome might be hidden or faint, or strangely angled or obscured by clouds. The only way to view the Half Dome from the valley floor is from the west, but the shadows in the photo bent toward Shore. Odd. Who swims mountain streams in the morning? Once again Campany was no help: "Casting shadows like sundials," he wrote, "each person appears suspended in time." Fine, but what did those sundials say? 

It didn't add up, at least not until I widened my search process up to other valley landmarks. Within a few jpgs I knew exactly what I was looking at. This wasn't Half Dome. It was Cathedral Rocks viewed downriver from the east. Cathedral Rocks —Damn, I should know that cliff. I climbed the east buttress of Middle Cathedral in 1998. But alas that was an earlier version of me, a version so unrecognizable he'd never turn up now on Streetview. Campany: "Behind the boy in the water, up on the rocks, is a man." Um, not quite.

To be fair Campany got it half right. Shore's photo pays homage to Adams. But not to Monolith or any other famous Half Dome image. Instead it's this Adams photo: Cathedral Spires and Rocks, 1949. 

This is the unmistakable formation on the far right skyline of Shore's photo. Instead of relegating it to the horizon it's been singled out for a glorious sun bath, as was Adams' wont.

If Adams tended to romanticize Yosemite he couldn't help it. In fact he was continuing the tradition of those before him. Here's Alvin Langdon Coburn's photo of Cathedral Rocks from 1911: 

Here's how Edweard Muybridge shot them in 1872:

And Carleton Watkins before that in 1861: 

Yes, Cathedral Rocks have a place in photo history. These older views tend to isolate and lift the formation to lord over mundane surroundings. Not Shore. He vacuumed up the whole valley in one scene, rocks, people, beach, river, trees,...a goddamn stroller for crisake. It was the shuffle approach, then in its infancy but about to be ushered into vogue with Shore's help. 

Shore's intent with Merced River went beyond shuffle, and beyond mere documentation. Ever the true photo nerd, he was paying tribute to predecessors, four at once! Of this Campany caught a whiff but not the full story. 

There are few other photos in Uncommon Places (perhaps none?) which rephotograph famous vistas. This one holds a special place. It may be the centerpiece of the entire series, a tangent to the flyfishing quote. This scene is irresistible. I want to shuffle into the frame, strip off my clothes, and sunbathe on the shore, 3,000 miles from any worry.

Q & A with Brittany Marcoux

Brittany Marcoux is a photographer based in Boston and the creator of The Shore Project, a rephotographing of Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places.  

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Blake Andrews: Can you recount how you first became interested in Stephen Shore, and how your Shore project began. 

Brittany Marcoux: Sure thing. After I graduated from my BFA program from the Maine College of Art in 2010, I was looking online for any job opportunities. I was searching Craigslist and stumbled upon this opportunity to be a lake house caretaker for the summer in Rangeley, Maine...

I know Rangeley! We spend a few weeks each summer near Skowhegan, and my father-in-law has a property called Quill Hill near Rangeley. Do you know either place?

Yep, I know of Skowhegan because they run a residency which I have looked into doing, but I think it's more for painting.

Skowhegan School of Art. It's very close to my in-laws. Did you ever visit the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley.

Yes! What a wild place and interesting individual he was. My in-laws visited us one weekend and we took them there on one rainy, cloudy afternoon, which was fitting. I actually got yelled at by one of the volunteers for taking a photo inside the museum. Apparently that is not allowed. I couldn’t help myself. There were just so many interesting things!

Rangeley sounded different and fun, although not connected to photography. I figured it could be a great opportunity to make some work and figure out what I wanted to do. My husband is also a teacher and had the summer off so it seemed like a perfect opportunity. I knew we were going to be living in a tiny cabin without electricity (only propane lights) so I brought a bunch of books and cameras and other essentials, of course. One of those books was Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places.

Which Uncommon Places was it? The original or the recent one with more photos?

Being 2010, I had the original one...which I am sticking to for this project. I am not going to try to re-photograph the newest edition that came out. I may change my mind someday, but for now I want it to stay true to the idea that first formed from the copy of the book I had and still have. It's completely falling apart now, full of duct tape and writings....it's become kind of an art piece in itself, haha.

Trying to photograph all the new photos added would be a lot of work. It's a lot of work already doing the original. How many photos are there again?

There are 144 images in the book. I have completed 58, so I have 86 to go! Which is exciting news...I still have a lot of territory to explore, esp. Texas, Arizona, Florida, Arkansas - I am going to have to spend a long time in each of these places.

Why did you have the book with you originally? Was it just on a whim? Or were you a big Shore fan at that time you lived in Rangeley?

I was always a fan of Shore’s work in general.  I was first introduced to American Surfaces and then Uncommon Places . I am a pretty nostalgic person. I think about the past a lot (even within my other bodies of work) and there was always something that drew me to looking at his images. I was born in 1986, so I only saw these types of cars, landscapes, and downtown streets from my parents' old blurry snapshots. It felt similar to looking back on their past, I suppose. I was drawn to the colors, the light, the prices of gas, and comparing all these elements to current times.

Hmm. I guess that's one of the central questions about Uncommon Places. Are the photos interesting for how they're seen and composed? Or due more to nostalgia for subject matter, the old cars and old signs, etc. I think the photos were pretty well respected at the time they were made before nostalgia could enter the equation. But at this point it's hard to say. Photographers are unconscious historians. We can't help it. And all photos get more interesting over time. Shore's perhaps more than most.

Absolutely. I contemplate about that all the time with his work.

How did you find the first Shore scene in Maine? I am looking at your pairing and I don't think I'd recognize that building.

Well, one day in Rangeley I realized that we were very close to Mexico, Maine, and so on our day off we went out and explored. We wanted to see if the little bar he photographed in 1974 was still there, just for fun. When we arrived we realized that this particular street (Bridge St.) had changed quite a bit. After asking some locals for help, we found the spot. The building was no longer there but a similar one was in its place, and the street name had changed to Main St. On the surface it looked completely different, but we slowly started to notice small things....the fence, the crosswalk...even the curb on the sidewalk. These tiny elements visible in Shore’s image due to the clarity of the 8x10 camera, all remained after almost 40 years! And this started the whole project. We were hooked after this one location.

When you say "we" I assume you mean you and your husband? Is he a creative collaborator in the project?

Yep, my husband Brian has been there from the very start of this project and we have gone on all of our road trips together to re-photograph...even our honeymoon! He is not a photographer, but a writer and a musician, and just as interested in this project as I am, thankfully. It is always nice to have a road companion.

Why do you think Shore photographed that scene in Mexico originally? What was it about that location? I realize we can only speculate. Any ideas?

Well, I think Shore was mostly interested in composition and symmetry...When you see this building it is so square...it's really an odd shape. I often think about the shots he took, and when we find them now I wonder if he would take the photo today...Most of the time I don’t believe he would….especially not in Mexico, Maine.

You mean if he was a younger Shore seeing it now? Or current Shore? 

Funny, I never think of younger Shore...I think of him now, and probably because he is still so popular and making work, and making new bodies of work.

What do you think of his current photos? I'm thinking of his Instagram feed which I'm guessing you've seen.

Yes I have, I am follower :) 

Has his style of photography changed?

No I don't think so, I think even his instagram account has  some similarities to the formal elements in Uncommon Places or even American Surfaces…It's just a different camera so the format changes....but the content and awareness of the environment, and his way of seeing all feels like Shore to me. His instagram account is a little more intimate, with photos of his garden and Ginger, which is fun. But, if you take his recent work from the Ukraine, there are moments that feel right out of Uncommon Places, especially some of the portraits and the image on his website of what looks like a hotel with pink wallpaper and bedding - he loves hotels.

Let's put it this way. Do you envision someone ever rephotographing his Instagram photos? Do you think they have that type of magnetism?

Nahh, I think it's harder to stay connected to Instagram photos...in the same way that one can become connected to a book or actual prints…It's more intimate.

Stephen Shore Instagram

Well, what if he made a book of them? Don't consider the format. Just what's in the photos.

Haha, still not the same. I also think the big draw for re-photographing Uncommon Places was that they did seem so thought out and calculated...and he gave the exact location in the title. 

It's interesting to compare to Eggleston's photos. You might think of them existing in that stylistic void between Uncommon Places and American Surfaces (ok, maybe not exactly, but bear with me for the sake of argument). They're from the same time period. But I doubt many would be tempted to rephotograph Eggleston. There seems to be something specific to Uncommon Places which invites reinvestigation. 

Yeah, they were just inviting someone to re-photograph them....and I know a few other people have made some local attempts, as you have even shown on your blog...but I am not sure anyone else is trying to do the whole book. If so, maybe we can collaborate and share stories (email me if you are out there, haha).

I guess I'm asking because to me his Instagram photos don't seem as considered. I think that's just the nature of Instagram. But also maybe his changing vision. As you say the pictures in Uncommon Places seem very thought out. Like he spent hours plotting the position and timing. And then the captioned date and location help nail it all down.

Yea...I never felt the urge to re-photograph American Surfaces, because those images always felt more candid and instinctual, something that cannot be replicated.

Closer to Instagram maybe.

Sure.

American Surfaces is more interesting than his IG for me. Maybe it's the nostalgia thing creeping in because they have all these 1970s artifacts. Who knows. There was definitely a harder edit back then, even with something as prolific as American Surfaces. The act of taking a photo implied a stricter curation. And then before they went out into the world the images were culled even more. But it's not just about editing. I think he was more visually attuned.

I think the 8x10 camera in general makes for a much slower process, whereas shooting with a 35mm, or iPhone, or even medium format allows you to be a bit more fluid. Do you shoot 8x10 at all?

I don't shoot 8 x 10. I've tried 4 x 5. Not my thing.

I thought about doing The Shore Project in 8x10, but then I thought "Hmm, would Shore do that now?" I am inclined to think he wouldn't, but I am not sure. Also, the price would just make the project impossible.

Shore has a made some public comments about the price of sheet film shooting Uncommon Places. It was definitely a factor in the project.

Right, and it is a lot more expensive now. For a pack of (10) color sheets it is $164 (on B+H)...so that’s $16.40 per shot before processing/scanning fees. I stated above there are 144 images. It would cost $2,361.60 to shoot the project. And that doesn’t even account for multiple exposures!

So if you're not using 8 x 10 what are you shooting the project with? (Sorry. Gear talk.)

I use a Canon 5D Mark II...I just shoot farther away than I need to in order to adjust for perspective shifts. I won't reveal all my editing secrets though, haha.

I noticed on your blog several examples with grid lines, etc. It looks like you try to nail down the viewpoints as close as possible to the original. Why is that important?

Yea, that was such an important part of his shooting. He really considered how one object in the landscape connected with another and the spaces between each element...I don't want to alter that space. If it is still there —the roof of a house, a telephone  pole, a tree— I will try and line it up as accurately as possible to the original, whether this is in camera (which I aim for first) or in post-production.

Do you think such an analytical approach might affect your appreciation for the sites? For example, when I look for photos on my own a lot of the decision making comes down to intuition. Maybe Shore found his sites this way too, I don't know. But you're taking a counter approach. Lots of research, then very specific remapping of the image. Can you still feel the sites, I wonder?

Absolutely. It is really a crazy a feeling when you stumble upon the correct spot. He doesn't always make it so easy, haha. We have met so many people throughout this project because we needed help finding a street or finding a business that has relocated over the years. We have shared the book with folks whose parents owned certain establishments (like Davey's Motel in Ironwood, Michigan) or homeowners that didn't even know their house was in a famous photo book (such as Natural Bridge, NY)…It has been a great experience to share.

How much research do the rephotographs generally take? Do you usually find the sites right off? Or is it more like Mexico, Maine where need to chat up locals.

Some are easy, like the Great Barrington, MA photo. This one was a piece of cake. Not only does he give the street name, but the number on the house is visible. And then some are harder than others, actually impossible. Take the photo on the opposing page from Brooklin, Maine - no other description and it is of a mobile trailer selling fish-n-chips. If anyone has any leads on that one, please help! I don't generally like to do too much research beforehand...we will use an actual map, or Google maps if need be. But as far as looking up locations before we get there, I feel it ruins the adventure for me.

So it's not all about the photos. But also about the road trip and the experience of looking. The process.

Yes, 100%. One of our best moments so far was on our most recent road trip through Canada this summer. The Terrace Bay, Ontario house.... We NEVER thought we would find it. Shore didn't give a street name on this one, so we were traveling blindly through the small town. After 6 years of working on this project, we kind of have an idea as to how he traveled...this was our only saving grace. He did not go too deep into each town. Something always caught his eye right away....and he always stayed on the smaller 'routes' throughout a place.

That's interesting. He was sort of a surface level traveler? So most of the sites are on the leading edge of town?

Yep, for the most part (that we have discovered so far), he was right off the route 6's, 1's, 2's and all other ones that run through America…and Canada as well as we discovered.

from Brittany Marcoux's road trip journal

Not Interstates though? I guess many weren't built at the time.

Exactly…these were the main roadways back then...in these areas anyways. My interstate knowledge is a little fuzzy. I believe the interstate highway was created in the '50s so it was around, just not fully completed in some areas. It also might have to do with him looking for more interesting parts of America and traveling the roads that he probably traveled on when he was growing up. As we all know, you really cannot see much from the highway, you really have to hit the backroads to explore the true nature of a state.

So how'd you find the Terrace Bay house?

We drove into two little neighborhoods, felt discouraged, and decided to  try one more. From inspecting the photograph, we could tell that the house was most likely on a corner, because Shore is photographing from behind. He wasn’t really one to trespass into backyards or personal spaces, he liked public, agreeable access. We took a side street into a little nested neighborhood and sure enough there it was on the next corner. We noticed the chimney first and then it all came together.

Wow. That seems beyond coincidental.

A woman was gardening outside and we spoke with her for about 40 minutes. She and her husband had just moved there a week prior to us finding the house! It was meant to be. Her husband was in the hospital and we shared the book with her and she was so excited to share the news with him later. That made us happy.

Maybe there was something in the structure of the town or road that led Shore there 40 years ago. And you there now?

Yea, something was in the air, haha. We even got to keep a paint chip from the house that had the underlying green color from Shore's photo. It was now like a navy blue color. My other favorite part from this location is the tree, which you can see as a little sapling in Shore’s original. In my 2016 version, the tree (I like to think it is the exact same tree) is full size and has a swing attached to one of the limbs. Over the course of 40 years this tree has been there and has its own story, ahhh I love it. Trees are always a good visual indication of the time passing in these rephotographed images.

It's ironic that the house was in the process of being painted during Shore's photo.

I know, that must be what caught his eye. I was naively hopeful that it would still look the same, but that would be crazy.

Did you send her a print?

I do have her contact info and will be emailing her my version alongside Shore’s original, as I have them displayed on my website. 

Now that you mention the types of sites he liked to shoot it raises questions about some of his photos. What about the Philadelphia ones? They seem buried in the middle of a city, not something a traveler would casually stumble on. Any idea about those? Was he visiting someone?

We have often thought about those ones, and they do stand out a bit, because he did not take too many in big cities (I live in Boston for instance and he did not shoot any there). So yes, I think maybe he could have been staying with some friends and went wandering around...or maybe he was in the city for some art event. Not really sure. I do know that those ones are much easier to find, especially the Philly ones. Big cities tend not to change too much. Houses change often, lil' mom and pop shops change a lot. But,big city buildings, or big churches like in CT - I can usually count on them still standing strong.

I think what you're saying is that big cities change like any place changes. But large urban buildings generally last a while, especially if they're institutional.

Yeah, in our experience so far. He has one on Market Street in San Francisco, I hope to find it this Spring. I can pretty much guarantee that it is going to look exactly the same. Sure, the cars will look different, and my shot may have a few more people in it...but those buildings will be there. 

With street addresses city locations are not hard. I think the other ones might be more appealing, if you just have a general highway or town and no address.  It more of a treasure hunt. And you've been doing this long enough to have a feel for his photos. When you begin to find his sites that way you know you've stepped into his shoes.

Yep, you can start to think like him, haha. It gets weird, but in a fun way.

You've mentioned the spacing between elements in Shore's photos, and trying that match that. And the way he found sites, and beginning to find them that way on your own. In some ways you're beginning to think like him. What do you think Shore was trying to express with Uncommon Places? And how has your understanding of the book or his photography changed during your project?

Hmm, I am not sure I can speak about what Shore was trying to express with this work. I do not want to cast any incorrect judgements, although I am sure I have already done that throughout this interview. 

I can, however, talk about what I am trying to express from rephotographing the photographs in Uncommon Places. Ever since that first photo we found in Mexico, Maine I have been interested in the similarities or changes —architecturally, culturally, economically, and politically— that have occurred across this country since Shore was there in the 1970s. As we are traveling I think: What has changed over the past 40 years in a small industrial town like Greenfield, Massachusetts? What stories have been told over the past four decades in Post Falls, Idaho? In El Paso, Texas are there any more small businesses left and if so, who owns them? I like to raise these questions for myself, but also hope that through viewing the two images side-by-side it will inspire others to think about the past, the present, and the future of our country. Especially at a time when our country is going through this intense and often discouraging election.

What do you think is more exciting for you? Finding a Shore site that looks almost the same as when he shot it? Or finding one which looks very different?

As I stated above, I am dangerously nostalgic, haha. I enjoy them the most when they look the same. Arriving at a site that is almost completely unchanged after 40 years is amazing. It has survived so many things —weather, ownership, all the major political and  economic shifts that this country has gone through since the 1970s — it says something about a place. It has roots. That being said, I do believe in a certain kind of progress. Let me explain with an example. In Shore’s photograph from College Park, Maryland of the Sidney Lust Drive-In theater, I knew it was going to look different before I even arrived due to its grungy appearance in 1976. What I feared was that it would become what it is now: A Costco. I wish it had progressed in as much as someone taking over the theater and improving its conditions. But that is not what is happening across this country. Costcos are what’s happening across this country. 

Does Stephen Shore know about your project?

He does. He reached out to me this most recent trip via instagram. I wrote something on instagram from @theshoreproject account about having a hard time finding the Sugar Bowl restaurant in Michigan. He direct messaged me to help a little. I was pretty excited...you can imagine. An email to him is in the works, with a little book of all the ones I have completed so far.

Yeah, I would read that. I'm surprised he still remembers the sites well enough to give directions. Not that he has a bad memory but that's a long time ago. So what does he think of the project?

Haha, he didn't really say, but I took it as a positive message…..If he didn't like it, I don't think he would give me advice, right? Which is why I want to follow up with him, to have a real conversation about it. I've been dragging my feet a little on that...maybe I am a bit scared. Haha.

Was the Shore project tied into your MFA program?

No, completely separate, but I have recently discovered that the conceptual side of it is not all too different. My MFA work was all about my childhood and recreating my childhood home/memories from scratch (reimagining a place that I could never go back to). For this I used installation, video, and photographs. I still worked on the Shore project but not for school.

The photographer as historian again.

Yep, or investigator/private detective.

Where are you shooting next? And when you expect the project might finish?

Well, I have a lot of editing to do from the summer trip. Then during spring break (my husband and I are both teachers now) we will be going out to Oregon, Washington, and California. Hitting up most of the West Coast locations.

You should come say hi if in Eugene. We don't have any Shore sites in the city, but there's a famous one not too far away (Highway 97 with Mt. Hood billboard).

Highway 97 South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973, Stephen Shore

That would be great.

There's also one in the town where I spent some of my childhood, Eureka, CA. I made a casual rephotograph there but not from his same angle. The motel is not hard to find. The car dealer in the background is still there...

I know the one, looking forward to shooting there. He must have shot it from his hotel balcony? It looks like there may be a pool to the left in the parking lot, and most of the time restaurants were right on the side of hotels/motels.

Strange photo factoid which you may or may not know: Paul McDonough made a photo inside the same site around the same time as Shore.

I think I saw that on your blog once. You do have an extensive knowledge of Uncommon Places, which is why I was so excited to do this interview. It has been a real pleasure!

Approximate

On the way to visit my parents last weekend I made a quick photo stop in Eureka to rephotograph the Shore/McDonough restaurant. It's now called Kristina's. Here's how it looked October 18th, 2014.

This is taken from the same vantage as Shore's forty years earlier:

I now know why Shore picked that spot. It's from the second floor landing of an adjacent motel, the only accessible high point around. Maybe he stayed there the night before. The motel is still there so I walked up and shot the scene. But my rephotograph was from memory so the framing is slightly off.

There isn't much special about my photo. Everything has changed since 1974 except the parking lot, but it still remains a dumb recording of a mundane place. Maybe it would've been more interesting with bird shit across the lens. 

Inca Roads

Paul McDonough's new book Sight Seeing came in the mail today. I sat down at lunch and gave it a quick thumb through. Just a few pages in this photo caught my eye.

Coffee Shop, Route 101 West, 1971

Holy crap, I thought. I know that scene! I whipped out my copy of Uncommon Places and there it was on the cover. Same restaurant. Same background. 

5th St. and Broadway, Eureka, CA, September 2, 1974, Stephen Shore

McDonough's photo was made in the southwest corner of Sambo's looking toward Highway 101. I ate there a few times as a young kid, probably not long after Shore's photo was taken. 

Tough to say what's happening here. McDonough made his photo before Shore, so he had no idea the place might be significant. But did the Uncommon Places photo influence his editing later, or (more likely) maybe he doesn't realize even now that it's the same place? It's not at all obvious, especially online. You have to examine the background very closely and the caption is slightly misleading which doesn't help. I'm guessing it's a complete coincidence, but who knows.

Anyway, that spot has some history in photoland. I rephotographed it in GSV. Turns out Paul McDonough beat me to it. What's it all mean? Nothing. Just weird. And it confirms that everything's been photographed already. 

I'll have a full review of the book on Photo-Eye in a few weeks.