七十年代初,彩色照片刚刚开始打入市场,摄影师Stephen Shore决定拍点儿彩色大幅照片,开车来回走过美国的大小城镇,这本书就是他开了一万多英里路之后的成果。
Stephen Shore的照片儿跟我们熟悉的美国风景照很不同,可以说第一眼看上去平淡得让人吃惊,都是些市井小镇的平凡景物,也不特别追求震撼效果或者奇特光线。他的技术精湛就不用说了,这本书里照片照片角度基本上只有几个,一个是正对着某一平面拍的,没有多余的前后景物,另外一个是正对着消失点拍的,还有一个是斜对着某个纵横相交的景物拍的。这些照片包含很多细节,却特意避免了一些优美构图的传统,看网上他最受欢迎的照片并不是很明显,这本书作为再版自选集,加入了很多原版编辑删掉的照片,其中就很有一些如同普通游客站在街头,随手一按快门拍下的景物。
因为读过作者自己说的创作意图,总有点儿先入为主的意见,找了一些朋友来看,普遍反映是“很无聊的到此一游”,或者“刻意展示的平庸”,太难领会其中妙处,的确他的照片单挑几张出来来独立观赏,远没有整本书一遍一遍翻有趣,这应该也是他预期的结果。
我很喜欢书后一段他的访谈,对我一开始的几个重大问题作了解释,看过之后就觉得他的创作方法非常严谨。在访谈里他说到:一开始想要追求的风格就是那种匆匆过客的眼光,后来因为大幅相机的操作复杂,拍摄之前需要仔细研究取景框内的影像,构图越来越有系统性。他自信这些照片能够归做艺术,是因为是他刻意决定(并且达到了)某种风格,“art is the conscious decision”(艺术是有意识的抉择),这个说法让人觉得恍然大悟,当然也深切体会,把摄影当作艺术跟把照片拍好看是两回事儿。
初版三十年后,Stephen Shore已经跟William Eggleston一并成为彩色摄影艺术的先驱,虽然很难保证观后感受,还是推荐每一个摄影爱好者,暂时放弃各大摄影教程中讲述的“好照片要素”,慢慢把这本书翻两遍,或许会发现这些刻意平凡之中,更深切的美妙,或许要摇头,那也无妨,艺术终究也是属于读者观众的。
So I put the books away and thought about it for a while, from the perspectives of a book lover instead of a camera lover.
The day after reading Uncommon Places, I could suddenly see his pictures everywhere in my daily commute through a suburban sprawl. The jagged lines of the horizon, the overlapping telephone poles and lampposts, the pastel colored house, out of repair industrial buildings, the school crossing man sitting under his big striped umberlla, the oleander shrub fencing an entrance road to a gas factory, the old-fashioned but never kitsch store signs, the beatup cars...
This town I go to work at is not rich or modern, many streets look just like a midwestern place, I've always wanted to stop on the way and take a few pictures of these, not in the Stephen Shore manner though, definitely not putting everything on the same picture, it's not pretty from where I'm sitting, nothing is in harmony, there'll be so many conflicting elements in the frame, violating numerous composition "rules", yet the whole scene look "instilled in time", it is a sight that makes people feel in place, as opposed to some magnificant city in which one could easily find himself "just passing by".
Unlike when I've got a camera in my hand, where I'd look in every direction for the best angle, trying to put on film what I did not see at the beginning, I was just sitting behind the wheel, feeling hungry at the very vision.