Sunday, March 15, 2015

Gabe Lugo - Post 1/4 - Alec Soth

Alec Soth




Alec Soth is a photographer born in and based out of Minnesota. His work has been featured and praised  in exhibitions and galleries internationally. He shoots with 8x10 view cameras of various brands, professional color negative film, strobes, and hot lights. His photos have a very rustic feel to them, and generally feature people and places that look like they came out of the 1970's and 80's. The exposure and white balance in his photos is generally spot on, but he occasionally under exposes to give photos a more dramatic or somber feel to them. Most of his photographs feature people framed in a interesting background or landscapes with some sort of interesting subject in the foreground. This interesting composition in his photos is quite obviously carefully considered for each shot, and the results lead to deeply captivating and thought provoking images.

In the first image above, the desolate landscape is interrupted by what appears to be an abandoned school bus and some wild horses. The cloudy sky and minimalism of the shot create a very melancholy and lonely feeling to the viewer. The presence of the horse seems to have some meaning, maybe that the old school methods of transportation outlast the new school modes like buses and whatnot.

The second image is great. Taken in a prison, the subject is in perfect focus, and was probably singled out for his shirt which says he is a "preacher man". The lighting in the image is spot on, and the background is chaotic and full of other people, but your attention is drawn to preacher man because of the use of selective focus and a relatively shallow depth of field. I feel like he's staring into my soul and I can feel the despair and pensive regret that occupies his consciousness. 

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