Uncommon Places

4to (243 x 283 mm), pp.63, [i] blank. 49 colour photographs, texts by Shore and Robert Venturi, design by Wendy Byrne. Original maroon cloth, spine and upper side lettered in brown; one corner bumped. Original colour photo-illustrated dust-jacket, printed in yellow, brown and red; light fading to spine and upper panel, short closed tear and light creasing to head of spine, ISBN sticker to lower panel. Near-fine.

First edition, signed. Shore helped to expand the possibilities for colour photography in these diaristic photographs of the American landscape, taken over a series of cross-country trips between 1973 and 1981. Architect Robert Venturi writes that Shore’s viewpoint ‘is that of our own absent-minded eyes as we wander through familiar places doing ordinary things – waiting for a bus or driving on an errand. In Shore’s photographs we discover the mislaid images that we ignored because of their very familiarity or rejected because of their banality… rejecting exotic compositions, artful editing, or facile simplification. He accepts the threadbare banality of the American scene, the jerryrigged, down-at-the-heels seediness of our rural landscapes and the spatial looseness of our towns, recapturing the overfamiliar, making it poignant, coherent, and almost lovable.’

Parr, M. and Badger, G., The Photobook: A History Vol.II, p.35; Auer, M. and M., 802 photo books, p.642.