Stephen A. Scheer Entry 1

Stephen A. Scheer is a photographer who shoots mostly social scenes and street photography. While his earlier color work focused on people, his later work, part of a project called "Interborough", featured different areas of New York City as his focus. Scheer's , whether it be of  a group of buildings or a group of people, are ver busy. There are usually many geometric shapes and textures, and in his color work, many different bright colors. His photos of New York City use buildings to create very interesting geometric compositions and often depict large areas, giving an epic feeling to his photos. At the same time, however, Scheer uses the composition and the crisp blacks and whites from his large format camera to bring all the elements of these vast scenes together, almost making them seem like a flat but beautiful collage. 

This is well displayed in his photo"Loew’s Kings Showcase, El Camino Verdadero, Flatbush III". The sides of the four buildings in this piece appear to have different textures and colors and all seem to be on the same plain.

Loew’s Kings Showcase, El Camino Verdadero, Flatbush III

Stephen A. Scheers photographs are the type of photographs that I enjoy looking at and I feel I have a similar style to his. I live in New York City myself, and I love the environment the buildings create. I try to capture the forms of the buildings and create a create a composition that is both geometric unique. I also like trying to use perspective to give buildings and other manmade structures qualities of other structures natural or manmade, like making a group of buildings look like a mountain. I feel Scheers photo, "Highbridge Park, Water Tower II" does this unintentionally. The textures of the leaves of these trees remind me of a large body of water with many choppy waves. The tower seems like a lighthouse. The trees that are depicted are obviously far away from the tower and the camera, but the way the camera captures almost everything in focus creates a flat feeling. The trees are turned into a busy intricate pattern.   

 

Highbridge Park, Water Tower II