Thursday, August 7, 2008

shore's journal

No new photos in this post, the lab at my school is shut down for the entire month of August. I will probably be going on another short road trip to an unsuspecting Midwestern city in the near future.

This morning on my way to work, just like every other morning, I listened to NPR's most emailed stories podcast. This one was from like 2 days ago though and the second story just so happened to be about the photographer I have come to so greatly admire... Stephen Shore. The topic was not his photographs but the most enigmatic thing about his photographic trips that I've always wondered so much about... his journal. Apparently it is out in limited edition form from Phaidon signed and numbered. You can probably guess what I did next... hopped on to Amazon and bought one for $157.


Like all photo books I consider this an investment. I've saved a few important receipts and things from my trip but have not written a single word about where I was or what was going on when I took the pictures I did. I saved all my maps and have traced the entire trip in black pen. Something about these maps and the randomness of the routes I chose intrigues me. The ramdoness of the locations, the routing of the trip, and the digital editing of the photos to include/exclude pieces of landscape are all parts of my art that I can't exactly pin down into an artist statement yet... but I hope to soon.


get it while it's hot...