From Our Archives: Alec Soth
Home Suite Home. Kissimmee, Florida © Alec Soth
This interview was originally featured in Issue No. 15 — Place.
ANDREA BLANCH: You have been called the greatest living photographer of America’s social and geographical landscape. How did you choose your subject, and why?
ALEC SOTH: Well, first of all. I’ve been called a lot of things! That’s just one of them, I certainly did not have ambitions to be some monumental recorder of America or anything like that. I came to photography from the kind of true documentary-style photographic tradition. You know, the whole Walker Evans lineage. But I was a very introspective person and, if I’m honest, initially I was more interested in exploring myself than society, or American society. So I think it’s inaccurate to claim that was my motivation. I’m not saying I didn’t, along the way, make some sort of record of things. But that wasn’t my intention.
ANDREA: You’ve said that vulnerability is the most beautiful thing. In regards to the subjects that you choose, do you find more vulnerability in those people than with, let’s say, more privileged people? Is that why you’re attracted to some of this? Or are you attracted to it as a documentarian? I’m just curious because some of your images are really difficult. To be with people like that all the time, I would get depressed.
ALEC: That’s an interesting question. It’s a question that hits on photography in general. Photography is so much about access. Essentially, it is quite challenging to get access to people of money. People of money often have gates: they have literal gates, and they can have emotional gates as well. On the other hand, if you’re driving around in Mississippi, not a lot of people have gates. A lot of people are just sitting out on stoops or whatever, and access is easier. So it wasn’t intentional – and I think it’s ethically problematic – but yes, I do think that I was able to access that kind of vulnerability more easily from people without means.
Dave and Trish. Denver, Colorado, 2013 © Alec Soth
ANDREA: Did you find any vulnerability in that world?
ALEC: I found less because of the way in which I was working – it was a real shift in my style of working. I had come up doing projects by myself, working in isolation. But when I did fashion, suddenly there were teams of people: people arranging things, sending me casting things, polaroids, all that stuff – like machinery. Thus, it generally prevented that kind of intimate relationship. One thing that I found fascinating along this line is that at a certain point I said, “Okay, no more models. I don’t want to work with models anymore.” Models are professionals. They have a switch that they click, and they do the model thing. It looks amazing to the camera – you’re just like, “Wow! That was beautiful!” But there’s no vulnerability there. Understandably. This is something I’ve found true of famous people in general. Or CEOs, people who get photographed a lot. It’s just a job. It’s easier to glimpse something raw and real with people who are less photographed in a professional context.
ANDREA: I read that you like the aggressiveness of a flash. Why do you think that was good for this assign- ment? Do you equate flash with journalism?
ALEC: In a sense, yes. I had once worked as a suburban newspaper photographer, and of course I’ve done years of assignments. One of the things that you learn as a photographer is that if you’re on assignment, as I said before, you have to come home with a picture. Especially in a newspaper context, you’re thrown in a lot of different situations. The mayor is giving a talk and the sun is behind the mayor. And you’re only allowed to stand in this one little area, how are you going to get a picture? You have to use a flash. You know you’re not going to create a Jeff Wall and restage this thing for a month and a half. So the flexibility of the flash makes sense. In a similar way, black and white has this efficiency for reporting purposes because it just cancels out that factor. So if the mayor is wearing a yellow suit, and looks ridiculous or something, you can neutralize the scene in a way. So I liked that, but I was also making reference to newspaper photography of the past and evoking that aesthetic.
Bil. Sandusky, Ohio, 2012 © Alec Soth
ANDREA: Why did you choose a muted palette?
ALEC: I don’t want to pretend I was overly conscious of it, but I was conscious of it. Photographers’ works that I studied and I really responded to had this kind of softness of color, not an exaggeration of color. There’s this funny thing with Eggleston; everyone talks about “The Red Ceiling” picture as being the quintessential color photograph. But it’s actually pretty atypical of his work. If you look at the great color photographers, they generally got past this point of, “oh wow! Oh purple, I’ll photograph it,” and dealt in experiencing the mood and color of something overall. So I responded to that kind of softer, more nuanced quality, and part of the thing about using 8x10 was the evenness. There’s sharpness to everything, and everything’s rendered with evenness. So hard shadows work against that in a lot of ways. And hard light works against that, too.
ANDREA: Do you really photograph a lot in different cultures and different countries?
ALEC: A fair amount. I’ve been photographing in Japan lately, but I don’t do major projects on it. But I did a thing in the Republic of Georgia, in China and in South America.
ANDREA: What do you teach?
ALEC: I don’t teach much, but I am really involved right now in this project with teens. It’s called the Winnebago Workshop – it’s actually an art school in an RV. I take the kids out and have them meet other artists. I think what I’m pretty good at is going out in the world and exploring, while also exploring internally. Being pushed out into the real world can be really powerful creatively, and I think there’s a timidity that a lot of artists have. In the smartphone era we forget that there’s a world, a physical world. But I’m not a great teacher. I just think of myself as a bus driver.
Prom. Cleveland, Ohio, 2012 © Alec Soth
ANDREA: You said there are photographs that work well on a wall and not in a book. Why is that?
ALEC: Sometimes images function best when stripped of all contexts, as well as with the physicality and scale of the print. Sometimes you need that.
ANDREA: It sounded really satisfying when you said that you like being called a photographer. Because a lot of people don’t, they don’t think it’s enough. What’s next for you? Are there any personal projects that you’re working on or thinking about?
ALEC: Yeah, I’ve been trying to get a personal project off the ground for the last year. And I’m struggling, but the last thing I want to do is talk about it, because I’ll be super self-conscious when I do. So yeah, I’m trying.
Cade and Cody. Au Gres, Michigan, 2012 © Alec Soth
To view the full interview, visit Issue No. 15 — Place.
