Alec Soth (b. 1969)

With Alec Soth I looked mainly at his work of ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004).  “In the book’s forty-six ruthlessly edited pictures, Soth alludes to illness, procreation, race, crime, learning, art, music, death, religion, redemption, politics, and cheap sex.” Anne Wilkes Tucker

Yet to me there seems to be a lot more to his images. These large format photographs, are desaturated with amazing detail that reveal the lives of the inhabitants (both current and departed). Those lives and hopes (no matter how seemingly insignificant or sad) are what I think Soth has captured so well and I hope to reflect the same – well try to.

Soth stated, “I believe that photography is essentially non-narrative. That, while it aches to tell stories, it doesn’t really tell stories that have a beginning, middle and end. This has constantly frustrated me about the medium, and I’ve been constantly battling it. What I’ve come up with, is that when I’m looking at a photographer’s work, I’m looking as much at that person’s experience as a photographer in the world, almost as if they are a first-person narrator, as I’m looking at the subjects of the photographs.”

Sleeping by the Mississippi is more about the spirit of wandering and peoples’ dreams than the river itself. Throughout the project, Soth asked his subjects to write down their dreams.  The first image (see above) is of Peter’s houseboat in Winona, Minnesota, it shows the northern reaches of the river. It’s winter and the banks are covered in snow but, Peter writes “I dream of running water”.  I think I would like to photograph the people of Ngawi not just on the tractor that populate the beach but in their happy place.

Soth uses all forms of equipment from disposable to the large format “I normally don’t have a camera with me when I approach somebody, so immediately it’s less threatening,” he explains. “Then people ask me about the project and only then do they see the camera. It’s big and old-fashioned and my head is covered by a dark cloth, which also changes things. They can’t see my face, so the situation becomes more relaxed. Because it takes so long, you have a conversation with them and the result shows.

“Sometimes I asked if I could go into people’s homes and take their pictures there,” he continues. “Some of the interiors in the book started as pictures of people, but then I found their homes were more interesting. Obviously you can’t just ask people to go into peoples’ homes and take their pictures.”  I think its going to take me sometime and a number of visits to be able to take interior shots but I’m hoping to get some.  My biggest concern is the initial approach and getting enough people interested.  A slow honest approach with an explanation of the project I hope will work.

Bibliography

Research

Access 23/12/19

https://alecsoth.com/photography/projects

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/alec-soth-sleeping-by-the-mississippi/

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/alec-soth-sleeping-by-the-mississippi

https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/sleeping-by-the-mississippi-alec-soths-revealing-photographs-of-americas-third-coast/

https://www.mmam.org/blog/2019/5/9/soth