The Spirit of the Chosen Photographer: Alec Soth

 

             Alec Soth is a very well-known portrait and landscape photographer who grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and established the idea of documentary-style photography. Soth has taken quite an interesting amount of pictures regarding random people and strangers from wherever he has gone for his pictures. His large-scale projects and portraits, it shows how his way of art is by far very simple yet very compelling to see.

The picture above is a good picture to represent Alec Soth’s work and photography. Soth took this picture when he was heading to a famous cave from a Batman television show in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. He took this picture when he was in a rush and saw this girl that appeared out of nowhere and ended up taking a picture of the girl.

Alec Soth’s work is by far, from what I think, very simple yet it captures the personality or the story of every person he’s taken a picture of. The overall point of Soth’s work is to capture a picture of those he sees as interesting, every person he sees he goes for the picture regardless of the situation. This is what I meant about how his work may seem very simple, taking pictures of random strangers as portraits, but there’s more to it than just the people.

The work of Alec Soth is to capture a picture of people he sees, he says that there’s a sense of imagery from every picture he’s taken. What I think he means by this is that for every photo there would always be something to say about it regarding what this person has gone through or what the situation is for this person in the image. I think it is very interesting that every picture of his are just very simple portraits of people, yet there can be a lot happening by just questioning or seeing what’s happening. That is why the picture above makes it really interesting, a girl carrying a skeleton to who knows where. It got me questioning about this person and what the girl’s current role is by just carrying a skeleton and wearing what seems like cowboy-style clothing. 

I personally am a simple person and seeing and learning that Alec Soth’s work is very simple makes it seem that even if we are simply there can be something to show. That is why I chose Alec Soth as the photographer that inspired some of my photos because even being simple there can still be some creativity in one’s work. There is always creativity in something even if someone feels like they don't, there is always something and that's how I felt when going through his work.