Extremely rare first edition from 1982, published by Aperture in the United States. Extremely rare and hard to find, especially in such excellent condition, a must-have for collectors. Uncommon Places is a landmark photographic work by Stephen Shore, originally published in 1982, that changed how many people see everyday America. Shore set out on road trips across the United States during the 1970s, travelling not just for adventure but with a sharp, attentive eye for what often goes unnoticed. What he documented—roadsides, motels, parking lots, suburban intersections, billboards, everyday buildings—wasn’t conventionally “beautiful,” but he treated it so. One of the defining features of Uncommon Places is its technical rigor. To capture those banal scenes with clarity and depth, Shore moved away from quick snapshots, using large‑format view cameras (4×5, then 8×10). The result is images with richness of detail—a kind of “surreal density” in ordinary scenes, allowing you, the viewer, to wander inside the photograph, to explore its layers. Shore’s approach feels simultaneously objective and intimate. There’s a stillness, a calm detachment—he doesn’t dramatize with sweeping vistas or grand events—but there is also a love for surfaces, nuance, color, light, and space. The everyday becomes quietly significant. A roadside sign, a parking lot under midday sun, a motel room with muted light—these all become more than their function; they become places you remember. Another strength of the book is how it reveals the texture of America during that period: not in terms of iconic landmarks or stereotypical grandeur, but in terms of transformations. Suburbs expanding, consumer culture, the built environment’s influence on landscape, the layers of human habitation and abandonment. Seeing America not as myth, but as lived infrastructure. In short, Uncommon Places is a book about seeing—the way the ordinary world holds more complexity and beauty than we usually allow. More than just photographs of roads and buildings, it’s a visual essay about how landscapes are shaped by people, culture, light, time—and how in paying attention to what’s around us, we can find something meaningful in what’s usually overlooked.