Alec Soth Songbook Alec Soth is an American

Alec Soth

Songbook Alec Soth is an American, unique, modern documentary photographer; Soth’s photos capture the raw individuality and sociality of human life. Alec Soth has worked on so many different inspireing projects such as ‘Songbook’, where soth has put together a collection of his photos that represent different types of people going through different ages (years). In ‘Songbook’ Soth’s photography is all monochromic and some of the photos have a reoccuring theme.

Soth has a website called “little brown mushroom” where Soth posts on his blog and has a business where he sells merchandise and his photography.

Niagara One of Soth’s projects ‘Niagra’ gave us an insight into American life starting in 2004 in Niagra, Canada. The images he has taken are of the people living in this area and the environment they live in. The story in these images is romance and of couples who have fallen in love and their stories including love letters they have written for one another. Alec Soth has not wanted to hide the fact that they live in a poor state as some of his images have a slight trashy feel to them due to the shabby background of the motel room or outside of the buildings. In stark contrast to the tourist attraction of Niagra falls which is on their doorstep which is highly beautiful and picturesque.

Alec Soth is showing us that we all want to find love within our lifetime no matter what our backgrounds are or problems we have encountered. We can find a positive in the situation to make it work. Alec Soth has used a digital camera for this project and all of the photographs are in colour using natural light outside but in some scenes inside rooms he has used a flash. No alteration has been done using photoshop. He has strong pops of colour in some of the scenes to add interest. He has possibly used a filter to make the colour stand out more than it would do naturally. His photographs have a retro feel to them. The images of buildings and scenery are often symmetrical giving a good balance to the scene and this linking to the story of finding love finding a good match in a partner.