Imitating Stephen Shore

 I watched a video on YouTube about the photographer Stephen Shore last month. Some people say he makes interesting photos of everyday scenes and other people say he skilfully photographs the banal. I looked at a number of his pictures after watching the video and, like every wannabe artist, thought, "Well, how hard can that be?" Quite hard, as it turns out.

I took my Nikon D850 out one cloudy morning to have a go at it. I chose the D850 for the image quality and because it does 5:4 format and Shore did a lot of his work on large format cameras. Here are some of my banal photographs.

Stephen Shore photographed a lot of his meals, so I took a picture of my cereal before I left the house.

I photographed this window before and you can see it in my recent posts. But this time I included a sliver of brick sidewalk. Slightly more interesting?

A downtown clothing shop, possibly a used clothing shop. I'm not sure that jacket will ever sell, but it certainly draws attention. Looking at this picture now, I'm thinking I should trim the left side to get rid of the black line. It's a little distracting.

"Why did you take a picture of this?" asked my wife. I like the simplicity of composition and the quality of the diffused morning light. She wasn't convinced.

She did like this one. Me, too. I like the light, the simplicity, the mystery of what's on the other side of this wall, and, most of all, the fact that the middle bollard is close to but doesn't touch the photo of Sokcho Harbour.

This scene was just ten metres or so down the road from the last one.

I like the composition of this photo, but it needs something. More contrast, perhaps?

Cheongcho Lake, which is more of a harbour considering the lake is attached to the sea and it's possible for large fishing vessels to come and go. There are several sets of binoculars on this deck, but what you can see besides high-rise apartments and a fish plant I don't know.

I made this picture with the Hipstamatic application on my phone. I took the same picture on the D850, but this one had more interesting colours.

This last photo doesn't really match the others, but wood and colour are so rare in the city that I wanted to take a picture.

I'm no Stephen Shore, but it was a good exercise to go out for a morning and try photographing the city in a way I hadn't before.

Biding My Time

 

Nikon F6, photographed on iPhone

I set up my camera at the park and waited for a cloud to pass over the sun and even out the lighting on this bush and stone marker. The clouds were slow so I walked around a little and used the Mark II Viewfinder app on my phone to check other compositions.

The clouds came and I made six photographs before rain followed and I had to give it up for the day.

A great afternoon out.

Café Window

 

Nikon D850

Ayajin Harbour Seen From Afar

 

Nikon F6, AF-S Nikkor 50mm F1.4G, Ilford XP2 Super 400

There are rays of light coming through the clouds, but they don't form an interesting pattern and they don't contrast much with the surrounding sky. The clouds aren't naturally that dark and my adjustments make them look, well, adjusted rather than natural. Not one for the portfolio, but not too bad. Also, there is a story to go along with it.

Three fashionably-dressed women showed up while I was photographing the sea and one of them had a mobile phone on a thin tripod for taking selfies of her group at the seaside. They made a few pictures and stopped by a café with outdoor seating. The photographer of the group left her seat and approached me. She mimed pressing a shutter button with her index finger.
"Picture?" she said in English.
I wasn't sure what she wanted. She mimed taking a picture again.
"Picture?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean," I said to her in Korean.
"Would you like me to take a picture of you?" she replied while pointing at my camera.
"Oh, no, I'm okay, thank you."
She smiled and went back to her friends.
"He says he's okay," she told them.
I suppose for people who feel the need to be in all their photos, anyone without a selfie stick or an obliging friend looks pitiful.

Bed

 

Everyone likes a nap. My wife thinks the cat looks cute and the first picture looks creepy.

Waiting for Buses

 A few photographs made over a couple of days while waiting for buses in downtown Sokcho.

I posted this same scene not too long ago, but this time I composed a little better for the left side of the frame and waited for a bus to enter the reflection.

If you're standing at the Sokcho Market bus stop and you turn around, you'll see a dingy, dirty alley where smokers often go while waiting for a bus. They seem to think that cigarette smoke doesn't move more than a foot from their bodies when, in fact, it sails right out of the alley and into the bus shelter. I looked up on this day and made a picture of the walls, the roof of the house at the end of the alley, and the street light.

Made at the same bus stop. I composed using the Hipstamatic application on my iPhone and waited for a bus to pass by. Perfect timing on the first attempt! Someone get me a hero biccy. (What's the proper spelling of 'hero biccy'? As in 'biscuit'? It was said all the time when I was young, but I can't find the phrase in my dictionary or on the Internet.)

Cherry Blossoms Visual

Someone in a comment to my last post asked if I had any pictures of the cherry blossoms. I only had a couple of snapshots to show some friends, so this morning I made this photo from my balcony window.

iPhone 6s Plus, Hipstamatic.