Composition and Light

Dusk

Golden Light

Tungsten Light

Natural Light

Composition and Light

Texture

Colour

Lines

Space

Patern

Alec Soth

 
In this essay i shall discuss the work of Alec Soth,a 44 year old photographer from Minneapolis. Alec is regarded very highly in the photography community constantly getting rave reviews from some of the best art critics in the world. This essay shall consist  of a three part process, first i shall have a brief discussion on alec's background,  i will talk about his most important projects and ones which i found most interesting. I will also, through this essay, give my own opinion on his work.
            Alec  Soth is one of the most compelling voices in contemporary photography, whose offbeat images of everyday America form powerful stories which can be from a personal experience, an idea, a hope and even a dream. Alec was born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He is an American photographer who is highly known for his ''large scale american'' projects. The photography of alec soth has a cinematic feel to it and makes us see a story behind the picture. Alec also has his own business, it is called the Little Brown Mushroom. In this shop he sells photo books, clothing items such as hats and t shirts and much more. He also has a blog on the website of the shop. An art critic who works for the New York Times said that Soth made  "photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers" and photographs "loners and dreamers". Another critic said his work tends to focus on  the  "off-beat, hauntingly banal images of modern America". Soth's work has been compared to the work of two other photographers, these are Walker Evans and Stephen Shore. Soth also belongs to the Magnum photo agency.
         Alec went to the Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville New York. It is said the Soth was a very shy child. One of his idols as a youngster was Diane Arbus, who photographed people the majority of the time. His first self printed photo book was called 'Sleeping in the Mississippi' which was published in 2004. For this book he traveled the Mississippi river, the book consisted of mainly landscapes and portraits. It has been said that Soth is nervous when photographing people, he has said ''My own awkwardness comforts people, I think, its part of the exchange.'' When Alec is on the road he tapes all of the ideas he wants to get photos of onto his steering wheel so he is constantly reminded of what he needs. This just shows how his mind works and how brilliant it is. I am certainly very impressed about this. His lists consisted of 'Beards, Bird watchers, Mushroom hunters, Mens retreats, After the rain and Figures from behind.' He would often ask people for their permission to take their photos to make sure they were ok and comfy to make the story behind the photo was portrayed. Soth is an amazing photographer for the reason that he will always try and make each photo lead into the next. these photos will have something to do with the previous. This technique, in my mind, is fantastic as not all photographers use this technique but Soth uses it to its fullest and we can see that when looking at some of his photo books. It is a narrative curve.
        In 2003 Soth won the Santa Fe prize for photography which has a cash prize oh $10'000 and previous winners such as  Eirik Johnson and Hiroyo Kaneko. In the same year Soth got a fellowship from the McKnight and Jerome foundation. Soth's work is so well done that his photos are in major and private art collection such as in the Museum of fine Arts Houston and in the Walker Arts Center. His work features a lot of solo and group projects including the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Sochs's second photo book was published in 2006 it was called Niagra. In this book we see he photographed people after their weddings in Niagra Falls. He took the photos of women in their bridal gowns, with some sitting on steps. Of course first he got permission from the newly married couples.  Soth has a lot of photo books made, one of these was called 'Last Day of W.' This photo book was about a country that was ''exhausted by George W Bush's presidency.'' This is another reason why Soths work is so good, he was not afraid to push the boundaries to produce spectacular work that is so eye catching and beautiful. He was also represented in the New York Time magazine.  The magazine’s cover story on the oil boom in North Dakota,  Soth spent a week traveling the state, photographing the locals and talking to them about their lives.
          Soth along with Lester B Morrison brought in there Broken Manual which was from 2006 to 2010. This was an underground instruction  book for those people who were looking to escape there lives and the hustle and bustle of civilization and all of its hardships. Soth had a time in his life when he was investigating places that people go to retreat and escape civilization. He looked into and took photos of such people like monks, survivalists, hermits and runaways. Soth has recently finished working on a photo book named 'From Here to There'. This photo book was with photos Sloth had taken in the 1990's up until the late 2000's. This photo books reveal all of the changes in society and more. Lately Soth has collaborated with Brad Zeller who is a writer from Twin Cities in Minneapolis. In 2010 Soth went to the United Kingdom with his family but was amazingly denied a work visa. Soth,talking about the man in the airport, said that "after threatening to put us back on the plane, he finally allowed us to stay, but said if I was caught taking photographs I could face up to two years in prison.". He then had the amazing idea to give his seven year old daughter, Carmen, his camera and let her take photos for him. While in Brighton she took up to 100 photos. Soth has some items which he favors to take photos of, these are hermits, Scarlett Johansson,  happy people, the Amazon, unusually tall people and the beautiful Welsh countryside. Soth now resides with his family in his hometown of Minneapolis.
           Alec Soths photo book Niagra has a theme of love within it. We see throughout the photo book the link of love in each photo which i find very gripping. In the first three photos there is a link in itself. The first image to the second is just a movement of the camera from the wall of the motel to the doors of four rooms. We then move inside one of the rooms where we find two towels in the shape of swans, a majestic and beautiful creature. These two swan towels appear to be kissing one another showing the love you can see between two objects. Soth knows that the readers mind will instantly go to love.

 We then move on a few photos and find Nicholas a unusually tall man in a tux. I love how in this book Soth puts this in as from previous studies it is clear that he himself loves to take photos of unusually tall men. This photo also conveys marriage and love. The picture of the wedding rings in the pawn shop is interesting in my mind. The top two rows have been cleared, presumably from people buying them. The rings are a symbol of togetherness and a permanent flow of love. I think that Soth was trying to show that with this image. Next we are shown an image of a lady named Melissa who is in her wedding dress sitting on a chair. This just shows love in marriage as she looks happy. Within this photo book we constantly see photos of people in love or after marriage and then every few photos we will see a beautiful image of the falls and of motels.These in my mind are indicating the love that Soth has for the falls and how beautiful it is, along with the love that is within the motels.  We see in one image a motel called the Happiness Inn. This is revealing that there must be a lot of marriages in this area. We see a lot of nude photograph within this book. I think that these show love but also the fragility of love. It shows that people can be fearless with love as i find that in these photos the people are being fearless in showing their love for one another. Later in the photo book we see a letter that has been written saying Kristelle is leaving her lover as she does not love him like she used to. This is showing the other side of love and how you can never be too careful with it. The letter when reading it makes you wonder what has she gone through and how did her love change. Again we see the ugly side of love, we see a photo of a sign saying 'Joys Divorce Party Night'. This is showing how easy love can be lost. In my opinion the most striking image has to be of the half destroyed newspaper which has an article on the front page about two lovers involved in a murder suicide. This shows what the rejection of love can make someone do. The idea that someone could do such a thing is incredible but it just shows the full power of love.

We see an end of a letter which seems to be from a woman writing to her love asking him if he could come home and if they could make a happy future. From this i feel as if maybe the man has been in trouble or they have had a shady past, perhaps he is unable to come home because he has done something illegal and had to leave his love behind for her  safety. WE see a photo of a stack of books which have pictures of men and women kissing on the side of them showing the love that is depicted in books. Finally another powerful image. There is a que of people outside the Two Hearts Chapel. This image shows new love and gives us hope for future love.



      In this essay i have discussed the work of Alec Soth and some of his work. I have also described one of Soths most powerful pieces of work and how i found it interesting.

Photo Book

The Handbook to the Stars by Peter Puklus is a very interesting photo book. There are a lot of different elements to it which make it so. The layout of the book is very unorthadox having half photos on some pages and then later on in the book we will see the full image. This is interesting as it gains your full attention and has you searching for the full photo. The pictures are very interesting as the majority are in black and white, however, every few pages we are shown a photo with full color. The image of the color bleed is very interesting too as it is one of the first colored images we see and it has so much debt and color to it. There are also a few subtle within some of the photos. we see a ladder used in two photo's and a Jameson bottle with a flower type ornament within it. Another very interesting thing about this photo book is the fact that you can look at it over and over and notice so many new things within each photo. Each of these elements made this photo book very interesting.