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\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI remember none of it!\u201d Stephen Shore says, sounding a little incredulous. \u201cI mean, there are a couple of pictures that I remember taking, but it\u2019s almost like an out-of-body experience.\u201d He\u2019s talking about the images that appear in his new book, Early Work<\/a>, which contains photographs he made between 1960 and 1965. The first of them were shot the year he turned 13. Most went unpublished at the time, although he got a couple into a magazine called U.S. Camera (which eventually evolved into Travel + Leisure), and when he was 14, MoMA bought three prints. Then this body of work sat, boxed up and carried through a life\u2019s career, unexamined for nearly 60 years. Only recently did his studio manager, Laura Steele, start scanning the negatives and telling Shore, \u201cYou should look at these.\u201d Some, he was extremely surprised to find, were made at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, in Atlantic City. \u201cI have a couple of rolls of film on the floor, so I had to have had a floor pass. I photographed Bobby Kennedy standing on the hood of a car at a rally outside.\u201d He has no memory of making the trip.<\/p>\n With a few exceptions, they don\u2019t look a lot like the photographs that thrust Shore into prominence in the 1970s. Those later pictures are (to oversimplify things) compositions of signs and curbs and power lines and gas pumps and highways, eerily still, uncannily balanced yet held in tension. They are often depopulated, shot painstakingly on large-format film and in color. (Shore is one of the major pioneers of color photography; before the 1970s, most artists considered it a little tacky, a medium best left to magazines and amateurs.)\u00a0Those famous\u00a0images have something in common with collage in that they are precise assemblages of lines and shapes, but instead of than putting them together on a surface, he\u2019s framing and capturing them from life. By contrast, the early work in the new book is black-and-white, shot with handheld cameras. Most of it depicts scenes in and around New York, often with people in the frame. There are quite a few pictures shot on the Upper East Side, where Shore lived with his parents, and in Greenwich Village.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy, when looking at this body of work, to make facile comparisons to the great street photographers who were working in New York City at the same time \u2014 Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Garry Winogrand \u2014 but Shore says he wasn\u2019t looking at their work, not yet. He first learned of Levitt, he says, after her book A Way of Seeing<\/a> was published in 1965. \u201cThere weren\u2019t exhibitions the way there are now, and there weren\u2019t very many books published.\u201d Barely any galleries cared about photography, either. The biggest influence of the time was perhaps Robert Frank\u2019s The Americans<\/a> \u2014 \u201cof course I knew that,\u201d Shore says \u2014 and he\u2019d spent some time with the work of W. Eugene Smith, Lee Friedlander, Weegee.\u00a0(The resonances with Winogrand and Arbus are probably an accident of time and place, because we\u2019re seeing the same era\u2019s low-slung cars and skinny ties and such, and they\u2019d surely all been looking at Frank\u2019s book.)<\/p>\n There is one particular photograph in this set that looks a bit more like his later work, and it\u2019s on the back cover of the new book (and appears just below). It shows a street corner in Rhinebeck, near where Shore lives in Dutchess County, and how it resurfaced is almost uncanny. A couple of years ago, he says, \u201cI went to Rhinebeck with my wife to do some shopping and came home. And Laura had printed a stack of these pictures for me to see, and the one on top was a picture of my parents standing on the corner in the center of Rhinebeck, an intersection I\u2019d just driven through 15 minutes before, ten miles from my home.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n Shore is a renowned teacher who has, since 1982, been head of the photography department at Bard College. So I asked him to look at a dozen of these pictures with two thoughts in mind: to recall what little he does remember about making them and also consider them as he would the work of an incoming student.\u00a0He was perhaps a little reticent about that second idea \u2014 my hunch is that he was averse to discussing his younger self as some sort of prodigy, although he\u2019d certainly be within his rights to do so \u2014 but he warmed to the idea, and his observations, excerpted below, were illuminating and thoughtful. At the end, I asked him for a more general crit of his younger self, and here\u2019s what he said: \u201cMy goal in teaching is to help each person find their own voice \u2014 not imposing mine on them but trying to uncover theirs. Sometimes it is giving actual guidance, and sometimes you have to let people alone \u2014 you feel like they\u2019re on track and they just need a little nudging. And I would say that this is a person that seems on track. He has an awareness of the frame, and he may not have been conscious of this; it may just have been good instinct. So I\u2019d make him conscious of his awareness of the frame, pointing out in those pictures where he\u2019s carefully chosen the vantage point, understanding how three-dimensional spaces collapse onto a picture. And pointing out that this young man seems intuitively aware that the reality of a photograph is not the same as the reality of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n __\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n This looks like the Upper East Side.<\/strong> Yes \u2014 it\u2019s on Sutton Place. I grew up in a building that\u2019s on the left side of the picture. And you got up close to this woman, which seems like a bold thing for a young person to do.<\/strong> Part of that was no one I can recall ever had a reaction to it. No one said, \u201cGo away.\u201d Of all the pictures, this is the only one where someone reacted to having their picture taken. It would not be true now. It could have been because I was just some kid, you know, and there just weren\u2019t as many photographers.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s true of this one \u2014 they\u2019re not reacting.<\/strong> Yes. One thing I see in the work in general was that I was very aware of facial expressions, looking for moments that seem meaningful or revelatory. And that structural sense, an awareness of the frame and how the frame works. But I want to go beyond that: Another thing I see is a kind of understanding of the gap between the world and the world in a photograph. They\u2019re not the same thing, and stopping a moment with particular expressions creates this particular experience that\u2019s not the same as sitting on the bus watching them.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s an unusual composition. <\/strong>One thing I think about when I\u2019m looking at this picture is my decision to include so much of the building. That\u2019s what makes the picture for me \u2014 it\u2019s not just the beauty of these women and their kind of self-possession, but the way I\u2019m balancing them with the rest of the frame.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n These guys seem like they\u2019re in a New York that doesn\u2019t exist anymore.<\/strong> I sometimes hear people who grew up in an ethnic neighborhood in Queens say that they\u2019d fight with each other but then go and play stickball together. And I see this kind of interaction in those guys hanging out outside the candy store or luncheonette or whatever. But the other thing is that people hung out on the street more. They didn\u2019t watch television the same way, and this was a half a century before or more before the first smartphone. People hung out on the street and they interacted. There was less to do.<\/strong> Or they were happy doing it.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n This woman, on the other hand, meets your gaze. Is she dismayed to be photographed or did you just catch a momentary expression, I wonder? <\/strong>I don\u2019t know. But there are a number of people who are looking at me as I\u2019m looking at them. When I was 14, I took a class with Lisette Model, and I don\u2019t remember what the content of her critique of my work was, but I see in some of the pictures of mine at the time her kind of confrontational, critical boldness.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n The first picture of these two reminds me slightly of the ones in Uncommon Places that you became widely known for. <\/strong>So this is a picture I assume I\u2019m taking from a bus, because that\u2019s how I got to school. There are a couple that you actually see the bus window in, but there are a number of them in the book where, if you see any of a street with a kind of slightly elevated view, they\u2019re taken out of a bus window. And I\u2019m looking at the kind of street theater. And then here\u2019s one on the subway \u2014 did you shoot much there?<\/strong> I did not, but there\u2019s another one taken on a train, and you know, there\u2019s so many contact sheets covering so many years that I\u2019m sure I missed lots.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t encounter a scene like this these days in New York, except maybe at Coney Island. <\/strong>One thing I remember is that, over a period of years, I would frequently go to the block on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, and that\u2019s where all the pictures of street preachers are taken. But also I\u2019d go photograph people in the arcades, where the pinball machines were, and that\u2019s where this is taken. And I just love him. I mean, he\u2019s just helping his son in the ways of the world, you know? \u201cDear boy, let me help you fire that gun.\u201d And we can joke about it, but this guy probably fought in World War II and came back alive \u2014 he\u2019s that age.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n From your essay in the book, I know you went to the Hackley School, up in Tarrytown, and I see a Hackley sweatshirt here, so I guess that\u2019s where it was? <\/strong>Yes. So there are three pictures from Hackley in the book, all from 1960. It\u2019s a private school in Westchester, and some kid has gotten a switchblade and is showing it off. Was your Hackley experience good?<\/strong> No, but not because of Hackley. I was just too young, and was homesick all the time. But I feel indebted to William Dexter, whose apartment with his wife was at the end of my hall. He was very encouraging of my photography, and there was a darkroom there. It was my first time working in a darkroom that wasn\u2019t a converted bathroom.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s at Bleecker and MacDougal Streets. I notice that you can see yourself in the reflection \u2014 is that one reason you chose this picture? <\/strong>That\u2019s part of it. And I knew the area \u2014 at this point I was living on the Upper East Side and going to school on the Upper West Side, but for several years, I went to Little Red Schoolhouse and would wander around the Village a lot. I once thought that the height of sophistication was to sit in Cafe Borgia and drink espresso. <\/strong>In high school I was, a couple of times a week, going to the Bleecker Street Cinema. After school, or sometimes when I should have been in school.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n This looks like the waterfront, or maybe onboard a ship?<\/strong> Yes, exactly. That\u2019s on the Staten Island Ferry. And it\u2019s another one where you got up close to some strangers. <\/strong>The other thing I see in this picture is that I\u2019m taking in the whole frame. It\u2019s really the same kind of formal awareness of how space and lines are rendered in a picture that I continue to explore later. It\u2019s one of my favorite pictures from the time \u2014 I don\u2019t remember taking it, but I printed it a number of times at the time, and that\u2019s one of the ones I knew about before Laura brought the collection to my attention. You caught the guy\u2019s ear at the right-hand edge just right. <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n _\n<\/p>\n Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure where this was. Maybe Washington Square.<\/strong> It could be, because that was one of the standard places I would go. I mean, I wasn\u2019t just living my life and having a camera along \u2014 I would go do things just for the sake of taking pictures, going on the ferry, going to 42nd Street. And Washington Square Park was another one.\u00a0I don\u2019t mean to compare it in any way, but it was taken probably the same year as Garry Winogrand\u2019s bench photograph<\/a> \u2014 which is a picture I have had hanging in my house for more than 50 years, and is one of my very favorite photographs.\u00a0Isn\u2019t it incredible? I could stare at it for an unlimited amount of time. It just keeps revealing itself.<\/strong> It is just an amazing piece of work. I don\u2019t mean to be promoting myself, but in my memoir, Modern Instances, there\u2019s an essay called \u201cA Thousand Words\u201d that is \u2014 oh God, I literally wrote exactly 1,000 words about that photograph. The editor came back and wanted to make a couple of cuts. And I said, \u201cWell, if you\u2019re gonna cut these three words out, you\u2019d better add three somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Stephen Shore, from Early Work (MACK, 2025). Courtesy of the artist and MACK. \u201cI remember none of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":197590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1022,70103,9297,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,3092,109650,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-197589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-chapters","11":"tag-cityscape","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-photography","19":"tag-stephen-shore","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115141989493960239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/fdb4e48391812d0fed9d9ecda1b259249a-earlywork-9.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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