Alec Soth

Alec Soth was born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. United States. Soth studied art and painting in New York at Sarah Lawrence College.

Soth changed his focus to creating outdoor sculpture and photographed them. This was what started Soth into photography. Soth studied photography with Joel Sternfeld and was impressed and influenced his photography. In an interview with Alec Soth by Jonathan Blaustein published in the American Photographer May 2013 http://aphotoeditor.com/2013/05/21/alec-soth-interview-part-1/ Soth also says that many other American photographers had an influence on his work such as Eggleston, Walker Evans, Stephen Shore and the staged photographs by Cindy Sherman.

Soth is known for his documentary style photography and has published several books, Looking for Love, Broken Manual, One Mississippi, Dog Days Bogotá, and Sleeping by the Mississippi.

Soth captures his images using colour and black and white film, large format cameras using tripod stands. Soth unlike Eggleston travels further around America, Soth’s book One Mississippi documents the scenes in people and places.

I see a connection between William Eggleston that relates to Alec soth’s work. They both photograph everyday places, events and people in social and community, going about their daily lives and settings. Both photographers capture things that are not always beautiful but the photographs make the viewer look deeper and the photographs create a story making you interested and intrigued in the pictures. They also show a traditional documentary style and realism in their pictures with atmosphere.

Latest exhibition that has been on show at the Science Museum, London is ‘Gathered Leaves’ 7 October 2015 – 28 March 2016 http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/alec-soth

A review of the ‘Gathered Leaves’ exhibition is published in the BJP online. “Photography is a language.” Alec Soth on his first UK exhibition Gathered Leaves. David James, 8 October 2015. http://www.bjp-online.com/2015/10/photography-is-a-language-alec-soth-on-his-first-uk-exhibition-gathered-leaves/

The Gathered Leaves exhibition was a collection of photographs from many of his previous books and exhibitions.

http://mackbooks.co.uk/books/1094-Gathered-Leaves.html

Latest exhibition that has been on show at the Science Museum, London is ‘Gathered Leaves’

http://mackbooks.co.uk/books/1094-Gathered-Leaves.html