Shooting with older photographers, who are important innovators and perhaps part of the avant-garde art scene, you don’t know if you should think of them as edgy, alternative types or old-fashioned gentlemen. I suppose they’re a mix of both. When in doubt, I default to being extra polite.
I rang his front doorbell two minutes after the appointed time, and he welcomed me into the house. He looked great, like an old man, bearded and dressed, respectively, but in a way that was thought out and presentable.
Despite the emergence of color as serious photography, the work is understated, so it’s not like his personality is a dynamic radical shift from that. Yet, I still strive to make pictures of him that convey the excitement of his best photographs. A love of life, a love of color, and American landscapes and cityscapes.
In the first few minutes with a subject, I’m trying to suss out how adventurous and agreeable they’re going to be. He showed me around, and I took pictures with my phone: the kitchen, the living room, the back hallway, and the bedroom back there. We even went out into the back garden, which he seemed excited about.
Early on, Stephen pushed back on my creative direction a little bit, which gave me a hint about his boundaries. He would not let me look in his basement to potentially shoot, and when I was doing his portrait with his glasses off by the kitchen, he said that he doesn’t want to be photographed close-up without his glasses on.
At that point, I knew that we weren’t doing the shots of him nude, or lying face down in the dirt. Nevertheless, I tried to keep my optimism that there would be opportunities sometime in the session to step up and do something more bold and striking.
The outdoor light was finally getting nice, and I suggested we go deep into the back of his property, into the woods and his stream. We grabbed a couple of appleboxes, which he helped carry.
There was some nice yellow foliage back there, which I hoped to take advantage of, but shooting a portrait in the forest is always a challenge for me. I find it difficult to make order from all the chaos of a dense wood. Perhaps shooting with the stream allows things to open up and create some negative space.
I shot this from three or four different positions, trying to get the right balance of environment and subject, and then he said, “I’m getting cold. Can we head back?”
On the way back, there was a vine coming down from the canopy that was interesting, and I asked him to pose with it. I showed him what I meant, stepping in with the looping vine, like a noose. He laughed and said, “No, I won’t do that.” But he offered an alternative: a broken-down park bench that was around a side path; we shot a little bit there.
I learned early on to take control of the shoot, and that includes shooting with other photographers. Even though I am photographing someone who is far more successful than me in my vocation, it is my shoot, and I’m the captain of the ship. So I’m just going to say “no, thank you“ but they cannot take over the shoot. If they try to do so, it’s going to get very awkward.
Stepping into the house was a win on another front. As I combed around the main floor again, I found some nice light hitting the staircase by the front door. I knew from experience that this light would not hold for long.
I had my tripod jammed in the corner by the front door, trying not to cast a shadow on my subject, but also hoping to see the back screen a little bit. The shots were looking good, and perhaps the best of the day so far (and I said so).
Eventually, I opened the front door and was half out the door, myself, with the camera still in the front foyer. This amused Stephen, and I tried to take advantage of his more open expression.
We shot for another couple of minutes, and then I asked him to come down a step. After a pause, he said, “That would be awkward for me.” I didn’t respond, and he did the move anyway. I was tempted to say, “Awkward is my brand!“, but I had the sense to keep my mouth shut.
Top Image: Stephen on the shore, at the edge of his upstate NY property.
Second Image: Stephen Shore on the stairs. October 30, 2026.
Bottom Image: Cover and inside spread from the Andy Warhol Stockholm catalogue, featuring Paul Morrissey and Nico. The book features a large portfolio of Shore’s Factory-era photographs.