self service by adam smith

selfservice


Self Service by Adam Smith
Website: www.theadamsmith.com

Published on February 13, 2009 by burn magazine. 103 Comments

103 Responses to “self service by adam smith”

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  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 11:33 am

    Love this one..
    This is my second home.. Chevron..
    The place to be..
    if not driving , of course..
    Driving
    P..
    ( I would rename the photo as:
    OASIS IN LA, if I may…)

  • John Gladdy
    February 13, 2009 at 11:34 am

    I guess I could Have a go at a reasonably objective[is that possible?] critique on this, but Its not really about that here is it?
    Otherwise, I dont know where to go with this.

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 11:41 am

    I’ve got to admit, I don’t get it. Why this photo?

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 11:43 am

    I’ll clarify my statement: I read the Blind Spot issue that focused on a sense of place (about 1-2 years ago), and I really tried to see what the photographs were showing, but it continues to elude me. Adam- if you could clarify that for me (and any other confused people), I’d really appreciate it.

  • James Powers
    February 13, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Nothing here. What’s the point?

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 11:49 am

    But James…!??
    “nothing” is the POINT..
    :))))
    peace and hugs..

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 11:51 am

    So Panos- you’re saying it’s Seinfeldian?

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    Asher…
    Looks like u nailed it…
    :))))))))

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    “What did you do today?”

    “I got up and went to work”

    “There’s a photo. That’s a photo”

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    Actually, Seinfeld was not really about “nothing”. It was very much about language, and towards the later years each episode was a series of seemingly unconnected dysfunctional vignettes that collided together into a single maelstrom of a mess at the end.

    So I still don’t get the “sense of place”, photos about “nothing” concept… But I’ll keep thinking about it and maybe it will come to me when I’m drunk or half asleep or some other altered state.

  • wendy
    February 13, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    self..
    perhaps~

  • wendy
    February 13, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    in regards to
    what’s the point..

  • Akaky
    February 13, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    Self-serve? Well, we know this place is not in New Jersey then.

  • Akaky
    February 13, 2009 at 12:26 pm

    Yes, but can nothing ever really be the point? Having raised this deeply philosophical point, and it being 12:25 pm here on the East Coast, I am going to lunch.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    Akaky..
    You bet it is a deeply philosophical matter..
    Most of humans are totally afraid of “nothing”..
    Of emptiness..
    Fear of “Nothing”…
    Is what created all religions ,
    I have to admit..
    Ok… Rushing to Denny’s…
    Still 9:40am.. In the west coast..
    Breakfast time!!!!

  • jared iorio
    February 13, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    This kind of shot kind of need to be perfectly composed to work as anything, and in the this case I just don’t see the time or thought put in. Sorry. :)
    Poles overlapping gas pumps, doors and signs cut off haphazardly, I don’t know, just doesn’t seem very clean, and I can’t make out a reason for it not to be.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    … Akaky …
    Malibu neither…
    :))))))

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Jared- I understand what you’re saying, and I felt that way about Lee Friedlander’s photos for a long time before his work struck a chord in me (see Google images for tons of examples of Friedlander’s photos) . But I agree that this particular photo just doesn’t quite make it. Some of Adam’s other photos on his website under “Sense of Place” are better.

  • jeff
    February 13, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Not in the same league as, say, Stephen Shore, whose mastery of the mundane is, well, masterful :-) But a look at Adam’s website shows much strong work and a consistently quirky eye. You’re a good photographer, Adam, don’t let the Seinfeldian asides above get you down.

  • marcin luczkowski
    February 13, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    I like this kind of images.

  • jeff
    February 13, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    Hi James –
    Not much on this blog seems to please you. I’m wondering if you could give us a list of your top 5 or 10 fave photogs, not necessarily contemporary…

    thanks
    regards
    JT

  • jared iorio
    February 13, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    I more than appreciate Friedlander, I absolutely love the guy. I like quite a few images on Adam’s site as well, by the way.

    This one just doesn’t seem lined up (like Friedlanders do), doesn’t seem taken with the same level of intent as some of the others in the project.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    Jeff.. What u mean??
    I think 90% here loved that photo..
    Adam I second MARCIN..
    love these type of photos too..

  • Haik
    February 13, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    Neither Oregon,

    Akaky – how was lunch?

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    .. He had “nothing” for lunch..
    :)))))))))

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    Ok.. Akaky had “fish” for lunch..
    :))))))))

  • Haik
    February 13, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    ADAM,

    A great photo and a great series on your site. Scratch Seinfeldian – it’s Egglestonian.

    PEOPLE
    - check out the rest of series on web site before getting too Powersy on Adam’s certain body parts.

    JAMES POWERS,
    You now have a powerful name :)))). Love your comments – keep ‘em coming.

    PANOS
    I thought you like Arco with AM/PM. disappointing betrayal.

    cheers all….

  • jeff
    February 13, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    sorry P
    didn’t read those comments above as an endorsement.
    my bad.

  • Mike R
    February 13, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    Deep Panos; very deep. Especially before breakfast!

    Mike.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    Haik..
    Best gas.. Valero..
    Best restrooms Arco, 76 and of course Starbucks..
    Best diesel chevron..
    Hottest cashier in the mobil gas station
    15 south, going San diego exit 79east, Indio ..
    near Pechanga Indian resevation..
    ( hey Vanessa , told you I’ll make you a movie star..!
    I’m from LA.. I know all Hollywood stars.. Wanna go out tonight, amiga???? )

  • Akaky
    February 13, 2009 at 2:01 pm

    Like hell I had fish. I had mortadella on a whole wheat roll and a bag of potato chips. And a granola bar, so I can pretend that this hearty repast was in some way beneficial to my health.

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    You’re right Haik- Eggleston, Jeff Wall, Friedlander…

    Sometimes it just “works”
    Sometimes it doesn’t
    Most of the time people are split between those 2…

  • Akaky
    February 13, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    That line actually works? It must be the bandanna and the accent; there’s no way your average American guy gets away with a line like that without the girl laughing in his face.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    I knew it..
    I guessed it right when I said Akaky
    had “nothing” for lunch..
    Nutricion wise!!!!
    :))))))))

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Nutrition…!
    Jee….!

  • Haik
    February 13, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    Out of gas station topic so very well shown by Adam and narrated by Panos but Starbucks also provides a shower service I heard :-)

    Hi Vanessa The Hottest Cachier….

  • Asher
    February 13, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    I agree.

  • panos skoulidas
    February 13, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    Damn..
    Now I know why she laughed…
    Hmm… It wasn’t my little fancy dance right in front of her beauty..
    it wasn’t my jokes either..
    ( hey Vanessa for some reason,
    When I tried to call u on the number you gave me..
    .. the local sheriff picked up the phone… Twice..
    But I understand.. It was a mistake.. Many people can’t
    Remember their own phone numbers..
    I’m not gonna take it personally.. or.. Hmmm!!)
    Laughing
    Love y’all ..

  • bobblack
    February 13, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Yes, it’s hard to ‘think’about a single picture after just watching Giovanni’s Sick Girl, but I think the photograph is not only such a nice diversion after long essays, but absolutely reminds me what is still so wild about photography. I too immediately thought of Shore and his cross-country journey. Those not familiar with Shore’s work, should take a look. In fact, last year a book of his journals from that seminal work/trip was published…it’s essential photography…

    what I dig about the pic is just that: it aint about nothing but about pictorial things. Besides Stephen Shore, I also thought of the great American painter Ed Ruscha…..i guess when i see photographs like this, i immediately think of painters (thus the connection to Ruscha, especially his paintings of Gas Stations and signs and words)…but also a very important idea about seeing…the clear patterns and though there aint anything more quotidian then the ubiquitous gas station and pump, blue on blue on blue ;)), its’s just a reminder that all around us is world through which our visiual cues and interpretations stake out for us…

    and I TOTALLY SEE BROTHER PANOS RUNNING OUT OF THE CONVENIENCE STORE WITH A 6-PACK OF BEER AND HANDFUL OF BURITOS AND PACK OF SMOKES on his way to Venice or Seattle or Texas :))))…i used to know these places well too, in a former life ;)))

    and Adam’s work totally makes sense when you see the website…

    ROCK ON BURN, it keeps on movin’on! :)))

    cheers, bob

  • Preston Merchant
    February 13, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    The solitary gas station is a strong theme in American painting and cinema, though this one, with SELF so prominently displayed, lacks the poignancy or sense of loneliness of an Edward Hopper painting. This is not really a criticism of the photo, but I do wonder, Adam, if you would have snapped it without the signage.

  • Patricia Lay-Dorsey
    February 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    This kind of photo doesn’t really turn me on aesthetically but it does interest me when I stop to consider how the photographer managed to see it in the first place. I mean gas stations are so ubiquitous, in the U.S. and Canada anyway, that few of us even SEE them anymore, that is unless you’re riding on empty and desperate for a fill-up.

    That being said, I think Adam has other more successful photos in his “A sense of place” gallery on his web site but maybe I’m enough of a Seinfeldian to prefer the “nothingness” of this one. It certainly jolted me out of my usual photographic expectations.

    Patricia

  • Mike Halminski
    February 13, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    Going back into my “box”, I have a little trouble identifying with shots like this. One thing for sure is that when looking at it in the year 2040, it’ll show people what gas stations used to look like when automobiles ran on fossil fuel. It would make a great 8×10 transparency though. It’s very sterile, and nicely composed.

  • John Vink
    February 13, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    Bob, do you know that little book by Ed Rusha about gas stations? A small booklet, soft cover, with some 20 or 30 pictures of gas sations, many at night. I bought that way back in the 70′s. It must be in my library in Brussels somewhere. Now THESE are gas stations…

  • bobblack
    February 13, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    John :))))

    yes, I DO! :))))))))…i have always loved Ruscha’s gas stations…and in a sense, i always loved him, a guy who went from painting to photography and photography to painting! :))))

    and his billboards and his ‘word’ paintings :)))))….

    for those people NOt familiar with the work John and I are talking about, look up his

    ‘twenty-six gas stations’

    http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/twentysix-gasoline-stations/

    I always loved the night stations too ;))) just brilliant! :))))

    that’s real beauty and sadness!!

    cant wait to we drink together :)))

    cheers
    bob

  • erica mcdonald
    February 13, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Well that’s it, really..it is possible to shoot this place and make it hit or seep or whisper or creep..and I have been looking at this shot trying to figure out what is holding it back.

    Words discussing Rusha’s 26 gasoline stations say “From the standpoint of traditional photographic aesthetics, the individual photographs seem unsuccessful and more like works of ‹bad photography›: too much empty space in the foreground, poorly chosen perspectives, and faulty contrasts, etc.. Through this deliberate lack of style, which is how Jeff Walls interprets it, Ruscha draws attention «to the estranged relationship of people to their rural environment, but without staging or dramatizing the estrangement”

    So how does one make ‹bad photography› great?

  • erica mcdonald
    February 13, 2009 at 5:54 pm

    Meaning..So how does one make ‹bad photography› great, NOW?? Once ‹bad photography› has been made with excellence, how can one follow that lineage without falling into the trap of making images that look more like they are attempting to have a “deliberate lack of style” in someone else’s style?

  • erica mcdonald
    February 13, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Adam, am looking at your site now..I should say that I have always wanted to be able to shoot the ‘empty places” images well, but I find it frustratingly difficult to do so and hope you aren’t disheartened by the feedback so far..in your “A sense of Place” series, I think the 2nd image is completely successful, and I wish we could hear feedback for why that one works so well (if others agree).

    Shooting the way you do for me is sort of like the opposite of winning at horseshoes..you really have to ring it, you get no real points for close. you have bitten off a big challenge in keeping to this esthetic.

    And I also think you were very successful in the hat /trailer shot in “intimate Distance” (great titles..)

    Gotta love another Radiohead Fan.

  • Michael Risenhoover
    February 13, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    I have to comment on the perfectly cold sterilized feel I get from this image, that along with the words “Self” scattered about the pumps makes this work for me.

  • jeff
    February 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm

    It’s worth a forture, Mr. Vink — the 3rd edition of that book sells for well over $1500 — the first editions are around $25K !!!

    “The most renowned series of artist’s books in the history of the genre,” Parr, The Photobook: A History, Vol. II;

  • Sebastian
    February 13, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    For once not one of these stupid slideshows. Thanks for that!

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