“I was a really shy person, so it is really strange that I have made a life out of approaching strangers”

Alex Soth is an American Documentary photographer, well known for his extensive photographic projects featuring the mid-western United States. Soth is an extremely successful photographer who has the rare ability to sell photographs as prints for large amounts of money, as well as being able to sell copies of his photo-book in mass quantity. Soth’s work explores social documentary, specfically the sub-genre of  community photography, meaning that he is very much required to work from an outsider perspective. He has stated that his biggest success within his photography is being able to shape his “photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers”, often “loners and dreamers”

Soth was born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. An introvert, Soth was extremely shy during childhood and adolescence. His interest in photography began through studying the worrk of portrait photographer Diane Arbus. Orginally, Soth considered himself to be a tableaux photographer – largely because he felt uncomfortable photographing people without their permission. He eventually began to become more interested in social documentary, esacially of Amercian Culture, and so extended his photography to combine photojournalism and tableaux photography.

Soth  first won worldwide artist recognition in 2004 with the publication of Sleeping by Mississippi; a self printed book by Soth. The book contists of Soth documentation landscapes and interiors while road trips along the Mississippi river. In 2006 this was followed by Soth’s series ‘Niagara’, using the location Niagara falls as the case-study of the project, exploring the meaning of Niagara Falls for different people. He has since then produced two more books, Last Days of W and From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America. He has also produced commissioned work for The New York Times Magazine.

Soth’s work is included in a number of permanent collections, including those at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. He is represented by the Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis.

  

“There’s a kind of beautiful loneliness in voyeurism. And that’s why I’m a photographer. “

” It’s a weird combination that makes a great picture. It’s a complete mystery to me.”

Atlantus – A Transoceanic Journey

Atlantus is a project which began in 2014 in collaboration with Gareth Syvret at the Archisle. The work initiated by the 350th anniversary of Sir George Carteret naming the state New Jersey after his home in 1664. The aim of the project was to compare the cultural differences and similarities of the island and state on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. The project is to connect these two communities in five stories combining both photographs and text. It is a DIY exhibition of a multi-functional newspaper. The story I find the most interesting is the third, my favourite photographs are also in this section. I like the cow image because it is not a typical photograph of a Jersey cow; it is a great deal more interesting because it captures the cow differently. Furthermore I like the story of the cow travelling to the state of New Jersey and the research gone into the work in order to find the people that have been connected to the gift.

Toft used a combination of portraits, landscapes , still life and archival material. Firstly, Toft used archival material as a crucial part of the narrative, Syvret’s writing has been influenced by the historic photographs. The archive links the project back to the original story, it allows the modern photographs to contrast with the background of the narrative. The landscapes have been included in order to represent the geographical side of the narrative. It compares the two lands and looks at the relationship between the two. In terms of still life photography, Toft photographs the archival records of Sir George Carteret at St. Ouen’s manor library. The point of the images are to outline the context of the project. There are different styles of portraiture that have been used for example, tableaux photography of political leaders and candid photography.

Robert Frank

Robert Frank produced at publication called ‘The Americans’ during the post-war era. It was first published in 1958 in France, it was considered extremely influential photography. The photographs are distinct in portraying both the low and high strata of American society. Overall the book was a portrait of the time that was viewed contemporary values and loneliness. The project is said to project a new view of America, it went against the typical wholesome photo essays displayed in some magazines. Frank’s work focused on factory workers of Detroit and other individuals or groups of people segregated from the American norm. 

I like Frank’s work because it represents honesty and truth. It shows a section of society that had gone un-photographed for a great deal of time. They were the outsiders of America, and Frank wanted to capture people at the time that would portray the reality of the country. In articles I have read there has been a mention of the idea of loneliness in his photographs. I think you can see this emotion abundantly clear in the images produced. There is a certain rawness to the photographs which translate the real feelings of these individuals. 

George Georgiou

Georgiou’s project is to photograph migrations and topography of London. The aim was to explore the movement of the increasing diversity in a western city. Georgiou wanted to capture the landscape and architecture and the rapid change that the city went through regularly. After spending the last nine years living and working in Eastern Europe, Georgiou was shocked by the speed of change and development that had occurred in the city whilst he was gone. I like these images because they show the city in it’s realness, there is no cover up to what we see everyday. I think the third image is particularly interesting as it’s not typically the image photographers normally want to capture. It shows the mundane regularity of people’s lives, rather than photographing the aesthetically pleasing and beautiful landscapes Georgiou is challenging the way we perceive our environment. He has captured the height of our development the way we travel, communicate and migrate creating a diverse culture. 

I like the idea of re-creating photographs, as I look similar to my mum I want to take some photographs of myself and replicate a photo of her as best as I can. I found some photographs from her wedding day that look the most like me, and I am going to dress myself to look like my mum as much as I can then take a photograph. This idea relates to the theme of family. I love the concept of relating me to my mum as a project because hopefully I’ll be able to capture an emotional connection between the photographs. I want to take the pictures on a disposable camera to make the photograph looks older so that it will look similar to the style of my mums photographs. Most of my family pictures were taken on disposable cameras so it is nice to fit my photographs with this theme. So when I compare my work with previous photographs from family albums it will interlink and look like more of a package.