Much has been written about Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi. First published in 2004, it is a landmark publication in the Magnum photographer’s career, which propelled him to international recognition and notoriety. First editions of the photobook are highly prized items today. At a talk in London in 2017, in conversation with Sean O’Hagan, Soth reflected on the work, almost 15 years on, and how he began to make what would eventually become the tightly-edited tome, Sleeping By the Mississippi.

He began to follow the Mississippi River in his car, driving from place to place, letting himself progress towards locations he had vaguely researched and “using the river as a route to connect with people along the way.” These were the early days of the web and the development of his process ran parallel to the growth of the internet. “It was like web surfing in the real world” he says, “it was like trying to ride a wave.”

I really like this book overall as there is an interesting mix between portraits and landscape images, all of these images throughout the book are filled with more cool toned images, this will be because of the climate that the photographs were taken in, and this helps the reader appreciate the lengths Soth went to to create this book.

Overall, the book is quite short, this may be a reflection of the fact that Soth’s journey across the Mississippi River came with some challenges, this image above is a great way to illustrate the challenges with living in these harsh areas, as the mountainise regain is not perfect for human civilisation, with the gas station being a physical reflection of how living in these areas can be not only physically changeling but lonely as well.

I like the simplicity of this image, and how there is one blank page with an image description, this means that all of the attention is faced onto the second page with the photograph, the fact that an image description is included means that Soth is making his work more readable for everyone, and more importantly making us consider his thought process behind his book more.

I really like that Soth has randomly placed landscape, portraits and still life type images throughout his whole book, this means that he has followed the rule of always having a pattern/ balance throughout his whole book, and this means that some aspects of his book are predictable. Furthermore, this plays into this simple looking book being increasingly complex, as the still life kind of images are of objects/ settings that have been found in different people’s homes along the Mississippi.

This portrait, in my opinion, is one of my favourite one that Soth has placed into this book, I think this is because of the fact that the colour of her hair is the same colour as the background of the last page of the book. I would like to replicate this kind of balance in my own photobook, also the angle of her face is one which suits her jawline and her neck being most straight matches with the black straight fencing poles that are placed in the background.

These are the only pages in the whole photobook that the image is on the left side of the pages, and the writing being on the right side of the pages. This image on the left is my favourite as it has a kind of loneliness to it, and I think one object being in the foreground of the image is the symbolism of his whole book, as there is only one object, and this is like this book, as this book is very different from his other works.

How our photobooks will be similar: we both aim to tell an intricate story throughout our photobooks, this is because like Soth, I have a variety of images, and some random images from areas in my home, such as flowers my mum displays and décor that I place in my bedroom. Both of our works will contain many blank pages and a lot of descriptive areas within our books, as I hope that anyone that looks through my book will understand the story I am attempting to tell, as it is very personal and its vital for me that anyone who wanted to could describe the storyline. Furthermore, I would like to add some coloured pages throughout my book, as I think this adds an aesthetical affect to the book, and the background could really like to the images on the pages.