Dawit Samson - Weekly Artist Post #11

Alec Soth 

1.) These three pictures are exerts from Aleck Soth's project "Songbook".  All in black and white, Soth uses contrast to put the focus on the subject. In all three pictures the subject is either darker or lighter than its surrounding. The miner is all black while the background is grey. The baby is placed near the lightest object, the swing, and the babies hair is the darkest. The sheriff is wearing a lighter uniform than everybody else, and he is walking along side the sheriff with the darkest coat and skin color. Soth demonstrates leading lines as well, especially in the second picture. He positions the empty swing to lead the eyes to the baby, and also the water hose. 

2.) The three pictures above can count as a portrait, the third being a big group portrait. What Soth does with his portraits though is that he uses everything in frame to aid in trying to capture who the person is. The first photo is of a miner. Instead of having a close up shot of the man, he insisted he sit down on some oil barrels with the in the deep in the background you can see the land oil rigs. This helps the aid the theme of who the person is, a hard working miner. The second photo shows how small the baby is. With the baby being far away from the camera, it gives the viewer a sense of scale, and how small the baby is compared to the world; however, this does not mean the baby is not important. He uses contrast to attract the attention to the baby. So though he might be small, the baby still has your attention. 

3.) Soth's use of contrast, composition, and location intrigues me. He could've done the cliche portraits of the miner, but he chose to show the miners story within the frame. His way of making pictures inspire me to step back, literally and metaphorically , and see if there is another way to take the portrait.