[“Everyone can take great pictures,” Alec Soth tells BJP at the opening of his first UK exhibition, Gathered Leaves, at London’s Science Museum. “What’s hard is taking a collection of great pictures and making them work together. It’s like language: everyone can speak but putting the words together is the real challenge.]
This is so true. I think most art photographers struggle with finding a narrative in their work. Sometimes a sequence stands out from the many scattered images on a table. At other times the inspiration doesn't come and the work remains elusive. Alec Soth's body of work is impressive. I would go as far to say that I find some of his images magnificent. Soth has an eye for the visual language of photography and contemporary culture that is hard to beat. There is a narrative of banality that runs through much of his work that - juxtaposing landscape with portrait and the little details. What I find most intriguing about the work of Alec Soth is those little contextual details.
Here are two photographs from his recent exhibition; two found notes that add depth and context to the unfolding narrative. Whether it's bridal couples and the inhabitants of Niagara Falls - in all their lurid postcard glory; or the secretive loners living off-grid in the American woodlands - Soth captures contextual information that creates mental pauses in the flow and sequencing of his work. The portraits do the same job; create a stopping space in which to contemplate what has gone before. But the little details also provide contrast and surprise.
Gathered Leaves is the new exhibition by Alec Soth. It brings together four pieces of work, the most famous of which (for me at any rate) is 'Sleeping by the Mississippi'. I personally find Soth's work inspirational. Soth is essentially a documentary photographer, but his juxtaposition of landscape with portrait creates intriguing narratives. I try to emulate this ability in my own constructed narratives. The most recent attempt at this technique is the 'I Make Myself in Your Meme' piece of work here.
