Larry Clark & I

When first seeing Larry Clark's photographs, you notice that he is greatly involved with his subject material in which he calls being involved with the outlaw life during the 60s. The early career of Larry Clark consisted of shooting photographs that captured "a record of his secret teenage life" thoughout his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. While stating this his main subjects were raw images of drug use and adolescent sex as well as portraits of young hustlers of that generation. During his early years as a photographer there was really no judgement or moral point of view conveyed through his photographs but simply just because this was the normal behavior of his subjects. While photographing, Clark would always capture a series that would convey a nightmarish, rogue side of the American youth with a style similar to documentary photography that would later be recognized today as Clark's signature style.

In comparison, the work Larry Clark produces is very similar to the work that I have been making. 

When shooting photographs I try to capture the beauty in subjects that are often looked down upon.
While the subjects are often people doing graffiti or roaming around where you aren't supposed to go, I always strive to create something other than what the average person knows. This is very similar to how Larry Clark shoots his subjects because it takes the viewer behind closed doors showing something so shocking. The collection of images we end up with over time is who we are and what our work is about.

Steven Shore Excerpt Interview

 



At first, when first seeing Steven Shores work, the photographs look like they were shot by just a tourist on the move traveling throughout the great lands of the USA. But after reading about how Shore comprises his photographs it is easy to come to realization that he might be the best American landscape photographer to ever live. While Steven Shore shoots a photograph he narrows his approach into three broad sections.  The first he describes the photograph as object (the Physical Level), the second he considers the illusion that exists upon that object (the Depictive Level), and the third examines the quality of how the viewer processes and focuses on space within an image (the Mental Level).  Understanding this workflow helps the viewer along with Shore himself see what actually goes in behind making a photograph.        

During his Interview with writer Luc Sante, Shore explains the whole process behind making and framing a good photograph before being shot. What I found interesting about what he explains is that while going out to shoot a photograph it is best to notice that you are photographing your subject as a collage made up of different layers so that you can only pay attention to one part of the "composition" almost like some sort of telepathy. Steven Shore surprised me when he stated that he never goes out to shoot a photograph with originality in mind. This made me understand that the originality behind making a photograph just comes normally over time with the problems and solutions you have to explore. It is important to understand how to properly frame and shoot a photograph. Shore best described this process as  that while shooting a photograph you should be the idea of an arrow getting shot, the arrow itself, and also the target. By saying this you are at every end of the photograph such as the receiving end and the sending end, making the concentration of photo making a spiritual discipline.