Alec Soth was born 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and besides of being a member of Magnum, he also founded the publishing house Little Brown Mushroom in 2010, where he publishes one great book after the other.
“Alec Soth has created a photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers. On his frequent road trips through America, he’s drawn to loners and dreamers he spots from his car; sometimes he will do several pass-bys before striking up a conversation. Often that will lead to a portrait session with his large-format 8-by-10 view camera.” - Hilarie M. Sheets (Trolling for Strangers to Befriend)
This video gives you a good overview of Alec Soth’s work, and the way he looks at photography.
You can see the entire page with all posts of Alec Soth’s work here on Lost in Publications.
“This was part of a project I did over the course of a couple of years at Niagara Falls, the former honeymoon capital of the world. I had an agreement with this particular wedding chapel, attached to a motel called the Flamingo Inn, that I could approach newlyweds after their ceremonies.
The woman was called Melissa. I took her photograph just after she was married, right outside the room she was staying in. You’ll notice that her husband isn’t in the picture - it’s such a difficult thing photographing a couple, because the power of a portrait is that you get to have a relationship with a person by staring into their eyes. When there are two people, it’s kind of complicated - you don’t know who to look at. So I realised I could separate out the couple and photograph them individually, which gives the picture a different kind of poignancy…” - Alec Soth (read the entire article about this picture here)
“Niagara” aka “The Penis Project”, is an exploration of love and relationships. Working over two years on the American and Canadian sides of the Niagara Falls, Alec Soth encourages and undermines modern myths, which focuses on love, sexuality and the promise of happiness and satisfaction.
To see the great photo essay, produced by Magnum in Motion, just click on the picture above.
“I thought of the project as being like a love song—a sad love song—and sort of emotional, hitting on certain cliches, but hopefully being moving in a way. I especially thought about Roy Orbison and these kind of crashing falsettos that he always builds to at the end of the song. I think the drama of that is reflective in the falls too.” - Alec Soth (“After the Falls” on MPRnews)
Alec Soth was in charge of the third issue of “Fashion Magazine” by Magnum Photos, after the success of the first two issues, by Martin Parr and Bruce Gilden.
“While “Fashion Magazine” has a single photographer-author, it’s still a magazine, not a book. So it doesn’t follow my usual mode of slow, solitary production. It’s collaboration. The ideas for the collaboration were formulated very quickly.
I was approached by the folks at the Paris office of Magnum to work on this issue late last year. I immediately said yes. I was a huge fan of the previous two editions (by Martin Parr and Bruce Gilden) and was looking for an excuse to play with fashion. I often say that when I am making a portrait, I’m not ‘capturing’ the other person. If the photograph documents anything, it is the space between the subject and myself.
Something similar is at work with “Fashion Magazine,” I’m not really comfortable saying I know anything about Paris or its fashion world. And I suspect that most fashionable Parisians know just as little about Minnesota. What is interesting is the space between us. My favorite example of this involves Chanel. In Paris, I photographed Karl Lagerfeld at the Grand Palais. In Minnesota, I photographed a girl with a Chanel shopping bag in front of Sally’s Beauty Shop. Withthis magazine, I’m trying to explore the distance between those two places.” - Alec Soth
In 2002 Alec Soth traveled with his wife to Bogotá, Colombia to adopt a baby girl. “Dog Days Bogotá” was made during the time they were waiting for the paperwork to be done, to take their daughter home.
“…Carmen’s birthmother gave her a book filled with letters, pictures and poems. “I hope that the hardness of the world will not hurt your sensitivity,” she wrote, “When I think about you I hope that your life is full of beautiful things.” With those words as a mission statement, I began making my own book for Carmen. In photographing the city of her birth, I hope I’ve described some of the beauty in this hard place.” - Alec Soth
“I was aware of the street kids in Bogotá. I mean, it is a hard thing to ignore, but I was especially attuned to it because of the adoption experience. But I was uncomfortable photographing these kids. So I photographed street-dogs instead. I guess they were a stand-in for the kids.” - Alec Soth (Alec Soth on “Dog Days Bogotá”)
“Dog Days Bogotá” was published by Steidl in 2009. Copies are still available at photo-eye and Steidl. Visit 5B4 for a review.
Alec Soth also publishes the men’s magazine “Lonely Boy Mag”, which combines erotic poetry with photo-stories.
The first issue was published in March 2011, in an edition of 1000 by Little Brown Mushroom Books, titled “No. A-1: Alec Soth’s Midwestern Exotica”.
It includes two photo series, “Starling” and “Single Goth”, by Alec Soth himself, the tale “Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream” by Jindřich Štyrský, and a series of ex-girlfriends photographs from the collection of LBM.
The second issue, “No. A-2: Boys and Their Cars”, features text and photographs by Todd Hido, Alec Soth, Chad States and erotic dioramas by Peter Davidson. It was published in June 2011, also in an edition of 1000.
Alec Soth’s work in the magazine, “The Most Beautiful Woman in Georgia”, is a pendant to his series “The Loneliest Man in Missouri”, which comes together with the book “From here to there: Alec Soth’s America”.
You can still get No.1 and No.2 of the “Lonely Boy Mag” directly at LBM.
Lonely Boy Mag. (No. A-2: Boys and Their Cars), 2011, LBM
Lonely Boy Mag. (No. A-2: Boys and Their Cars), 2011, LBM
Lonely Boy Mag. (No. A-2: Boys and Their Cars), 2011, LBM
Lonely Boy Mag. (No. A-2: Boys and Their Cars), 2011, LBM
“Broken Manual” was created between 2006-2010, and is an investigation of places in which people retreat to escape civilization. Together with the mysterious Lester B. Morrison, Alec Soth created an underground instruction manual for those looking to escape their lives.
“In the case of Broken Manual, I really wanted to extend that space. The work is about distance and the longing for separation.” - Alec Soth (interview on thesartorialist)
Instead of publishing a special edition afterwards, “Broken Manual” came out first in an edition of 300, were each copy of the book is housed inside of another, one-of-a-kind book. Signed and numbered with a 8×10” print.
The “normal” softcover edition, will be published by Steidl in June 2012.
During the time Alec Soth was working on “Broken Manual”, a camera crew accompaniedhim during the preliminary stage of his project. The result is the film “Somewhere to Disappear”, which hopefully will come out as a DVD soon.
"I’m not that obsessed with individual photographs. In a matter of seconds I could do a Google image search and come up with a dozen pictures that are ‘greater’ than any I’ve ever taken. The challenge is coming up with a great sequence of pictures that work together."
“Sleeping by the Mississippi” is Alec Soth first book, published 2004 by Steidl, - sold out and already a classic.
Shot over a period of 5 years, he followed the four thousand kilometers long river, from its source in Minnesota to the delta on the Gulf of Mexico. Far away from the typical Mississippi clichés, Alec Soth documents the poverty, decay and eccentricity of the region. But the project is not just about this, it’s more about the spirit of wandering and about the dreams of the people he photographed.
“In the beginning the project had nothing to do with the Mississippi. It evolved from a project called From Here to there in which one picture leads to another, connected by an idea or a theme. In the process, I travelled down the Mississippi, but I got to thinking that the idea was too gimmicky, so I shifted to the idea of the Mississippi being a link between the pictures.” - Alec Soth
“The Last Days of W.” came out as a self-published newspaper in 2008, which assembles 36 photographs, made over the last eight years, when George W. Bush was president. Despite a run of 6,000 copies, it’s hard to still find one. For more details you can read the interview “Prescience and Poetry – James Miller with Alec Soth”.
“Henri Cartier-Bresson famously said, “The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks.” But I don’t think the world would have been a better place if these photographers had headed off to a war zone. The question is whether you can be a political photographer while you photograph rocks. My pictures don’t have a specific social commentary but I think they have social and political meaning.” - Alec Soth
For the tenth “FotoGrafia Festival Internazionle di Roma” in 2011, Alec Soth was commissioned to portray Rome with total freedom. The result of his work was the book “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, which was inspired by the the english poet John Keats, who spent 1821, the last months of his life in Rome.
“I remade Ruth Orkin’s iconic photograph, “An American Girl in Italy (1951).” But this photograph was just a jumping off point for a really crazy series of photographs. When I arrived in Rome, I’d just recovered from an illness and some other personal drama and was a little out of my mind. I was inspired by John Keats (who came to Rome to die in 1821) and ended up producing a series named after one of his poems: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” (“The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy”).” - Alec Soth (How to Revisit an Iconic Photograph)
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” was published by Punctum Press for the Fotografia Festival of Roma, 2011, in an edition of 500 copies (175 Italian / 325 English). Curated by Marco Delogu with an essay by Francesco Zanot.
For more information check out the blog post at phot(o)lia and the review by Douglas Stockdale. On photo-eye you can still get a copy of this great book.
“From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America”, was published by Hatje Cantz in 2010, and contains an overview of his photographic work.
Starting with his more or less unknown black and white work from the early 90’s, it covers everything till his recent project “Broken Manual”, and even comes with a little artist book “The Loneliest Man in Missouri”.
The impressive list of writers like Siri Engberg, Geoff Dyer, Britt Salvesen, August Kleinzahler and Barry Schwabsky, have contributed to this book with essays, about the work and beyond. The entire interview by Bartholomew Ryan in this book, can be read here.
The book is still available directly at Hatje Cantz.
