Monday, May 28, 2007

Ashland, 1973

In 1972, Shore drove from New York City to Amarillo, Texas making photographs that documented everything he did in a style that mirrored your average snapshot. It was an attempt to make art in the world that would reflect his own existence, yet maintain a discernable conceptual content. He was taking pictures Warhol might have made if he was riding shotgun with Robert Frank. The images covered a wide swath of all parts of America and its broad culture: while remaining art objects that intentionally looked like a snapshots even if they contained things no discerning tourist would bother to remember: toilets, TV dinners, unremarkable intersections, and random strangers. The work served its purposes well: it created a very detailed diary with no central character. The pictures become the diary of an invisible man: you know his whereabouts from the spaces he inhabits, the food he eats and the people who notice his existence, but he is never seen or heard. What makes the pictures sing is Shore’s breathtaking ability to create a world that seems so every day, but contains elements of transcendent beauty that obliterating anything undertaken by nature photographers like Ansel Adams or Elliot Porter. Shore creates a seamless image that makes the viewers feel they are the ones who noticed the light streaming through a telephone booth, the dance of telephone wires over a dusty street, the color of a turquoise pipe, the sky reflected in the hoods of parked cars, and generally how great our world can look if one takes some time...
The lack of a personal visual style might have been the result of the working through of visual problems, but in the end it allows those who like looking to feel that if given the chance they might be able to see the world as wondrously as Shore did. At the close of the Uncommon Places work, Shore returned to more conceptual territories, making images that de-constructed scale, perspective, and sequencing: he returned to making pictures about how the camera sees. At times these are interesting, but they are not nearly as fulfilling as the world we were lucky enough to see through his rather generous eye.
Image Credit: Stephen Shore : Second Street, Ashland, Wisconsin, July 9, 1973


http://www.skuawk.com/photography/959/the-landscape-of-stephen-shore-at-the-icp

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Washington, 1849

David Rice Atchison
Birth: Aug. 11, 1807
Death: Jan. 26, 1886
US Senator. Twice elected as a Senator from Missouri to the United States Senate, serving first from 1843 to 1848, then from 1849 to 1855. Served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate in 1849. The term of President James K Polk ended on Sunday March 4 1849, and President-Elect Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath of office on a Sunday, so Senator Atchison is said to have been President of The United States for one day. In reality President Polk's term was extended for one day, and David Atchison spent the entire day he was supposed to have been President in bed.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4972

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Sheffield, 2007

Does anyone round here know where i can get some savaloy sausage from.I really fancy some,and the pikelet/crumpet thread got me thinking.In my home town of chatham kent the local chip shop sells savaloy.But when we moved to sheffield and i walked in chip shop asking for some they looked at me gone out.Then again in kent they don't sell mushy peas.I think it is weird how to places can seem like there two diffrent worlds.Anyway if anyone could help i would be grateful.

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-174758.html

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Portsea, 1967

Harold Holt disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria on 17 December, 1967. His body was never recovered. Without determining the cause of Holt's death, a joint report by Commonwealth and Victoria Police, submitted in January 1968, concluded that, '… there has been no indication that the disappearance of the late Mr Holt was anything other than accidental'. The report (see copy on file A1209, 1968/8063) found that his last movements followed a routine domestic pattern, his demeanour had been normal and despite his knowledge of the beach, the turbulent conditions (high winds, rough seas and rip tides) overcame him. The explanations put forward for a failure to find the body included an attack by marine life, the body being carried out to sea by tides or becoming wedged in rock crevices.

http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/fact_sheets/FS144.html