I’ve become increasingly nihilistic about photography… photography was much more interesting 50 plus years ago, and now there is just this overabundance of photography. It’s like saying “What type of art do you do?” “Oh, I do Twitter.”

— Alec Soth

via Too Muck Chocolate.

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33 Comments

  1. While I have an immense amount of respect for Mr. Soth and his photographs, When he says ‘photography was much more interesting 50 plus years ago”

    is sort of like visiting Austin for the first time during SXSW or San Francisco (anytime) and hearing those who have lived there for a long time say “you should have been here 10/20/30/40 years ago. “

    • @Ellis Vener,

      Austin WAS better in the 70’s. I have some hazy memories of Armadillo World Headquarters that I’m very fond of…

      • Austin was never the same after Scratch Acid left town

      • @Ziv,

        I was there too: 1975-1981. And yes it was a different place and my memories are mostly fond and not particularly hazy but even then there were people who grumbled that “you should have been here last year or five years ago, the place has gone completely to hell now” –Which was my point.

        Not to be trite (just obvious) We make photos now that were impossible to conceive of 50 years ago. Beyond the substantial but really merely technical technical differences (digital vs. film; etc.), our ways of seeing and visual story telling, etc. are deeply informed by the photographers who ahve been working hard at pushingthe envelope of photographic seeing– Erwitt, Winogrand, Arbus, Avedon, Robert Adams, William Klett, Jay MAisel, Pete Turner, Jim Nachtwey, Mary Ellen Mark, Jodi Cobb, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Chris Buck, Gregory Heisler, Dan Winters, Anton Kratchovil, Anton Corbjin, Eggleston, or whoever floats your particular boat.

        yeah I know that is an obvious point and yeah it is also obvious that photography and just as importantly the meaning we find in photos changes with time and social changes — but painting and sculpture and writing changes too. That only means that photography as a medium for visual story tellign is alive and well.

        The business of getting people to value our work and pay us reasonable rates for our work and the value it adds to their product may not be the same (frankly it sucks) but for me that is a separate matter from the essense of photography and from being some one who makes and appreciates photographs.

        • @Ellis Vener,

          I need to spell and grammar check more carefully before posting!

          • @Ellis Vener, living in and coming to Austin for the last couple of decades I hear what your are saying and agree. With respect to Alec, I had the benefit of hearing him recently explain this perspective a bit further and based off of this discussion I agree. What I find interesting was what Alec referred to as the photo-jungle and the homogenization of photography as a result of flickr, the net, digital cameras, and the want to participate in the “lifestyle” that has been fabricated around photography and the photographer.

            @ Ellis, How many original Austinites (or photographers) does it take to screw in a light bulb? Lets say 10, 1 to remove and replace the light bulb, and 9 others to stand around and talk about how great the last light bulb was….

            • Hah! I first heard that joke from the late Reagan Bradshaw.

  2. and the navel gazing continues. Love his work, just don’t know what has happened to the thoughts. From insightful and relevant to ‘me me me’. It reminds me of a certain ‘chattering’ class who proclaim the best films were made in the thirties by directors you have never heard of because, well, you aren’t as interesting as we are. Actually, there seems to be a lot of this going on these days.

    There are wonderful parts of the interview, but this selection really does sound disingenuous. Soth hasn’t even been photographing for 50 years so that means… well. Dang!

  3. He’s off by a few thousand years, actually. Photography was much better when Caveman used to draw stick figures on walls. And boy were they able to tell those hunting stories with them!!

  4. DS: Right, I’ve read that you’ve said photography really isn’t a great medium for story telling, and so is that where your frustrations stem from?

    AS: Well, that photography is just not good for storytelling, yes.

    …wiat…what?

    Where did DS read this and what is AS’s response, besides “yes”?

    • @seventh self, http://www.seesawmagazine.com/soth_pages/soth_interview.html

      I don’t have time to reread this whole interview, but I think I was referring to this one: http://www.seesawmagazine.com/soth_pages/soth_interview.html

      He’s referring to photography relative to other artistic mediums (in particular film). Obviously when one conducts an interview they are not necessarily endorsing the interviewee’s opinions. Although I find many of Soth’s to be venerable.

      • @Daniel Shea, Thanks. That explains things more clearly. The title of this post and his response to your question seem to be entirely different. It was misleading/confusing… I didn’t understand what Storytelling and Overabundance of photography had to do with each other? Which they don’t. He seemed to answer your question about where his frustration stems from (you thought storytelling) with the overabundance issue instead.

        thanks for the footnote!

        • @seventh self, No problem, I think Rob’s selection here is slightly confusing, hopefully people will go on to read the entire interview!

          • @Daniel Shea, Yes…I think they should read both interviews to see what you were referring to, which is brought up in the second question of the interview on seesaw.

            To which I agree with Aaron Schuman’s response that “ambiguity is one of the most thrilling aspects of the medium”. If I want a story I read a book or watch a movie. My favorite photographs are one’s that really peak my curiosity about what the hell is going on or what that person in the photograph is all about? Knowing I will never know, I can enjoy looking at it time and time again and still feel that same curiosity. That’s the thrill and what makes a good photograph (IMO).

            • @seventh self, I couldn’t agree more, and I think that’s what keeps us all invested in this medium, limiting or not. I also think Alec envisions his and other photographers’ audiences in a more democratic matter, considering both practitioners/dedicated followers and the lay man. In that regard, ambiguity is something more explicitly revered by those who have been trained to look for it.

              Of course, that’s not to say the general public doesn’t take away a poetic ambiguity from certain work.

  5. I find merit in his sentiments. The SNR has gotten quite high. This doesn’t mean there aren’t (some) good photographs (and digital images) being created today. However we are firmly stuck in an age of Simulacra and Simulation .

  6. Everything was always better 10 years ago, and if you went back 10 years you would hear how it was better 10 years ago. Photography must have been absolutely amazing the day after it was invented, and then it went downhill from there. In the rave world it’s called the drugs starting to wear off. It’s a good way to separate those who are just there for the ride and those that actually care about the industry/scene/etc.

    As the price of entry drops, we get more people but it also means that it takes more than just money to distinguish yourself and I’m all for talent being more of a deciding factor than access to equipment.

  7. Chuck Close can do Alec one better: “from my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840.”

    • @Todd W., Ha! Forgot about that one. When you see those daguerrotypes in person it does make you wonder…

  8. Subtlety falls to impact from an overabundance of images. Fewer photographers in the past had the ability to get a message across without hitting someone over the head with it. I think that has more to do with societal and cultural changes than with photographic technology and abundance. People had a slightly slower pace of life decades ago, and perhaps a bit more time to think about what they saw, rather than simply reacting to images.

  9. Because photography is so easy to access it’s enormously competitive, and since it *does* have it’s physical limitations it *is* hard to find a niche and do something new. So I’m not surprised Alec is feeling this pressure and feels a bit helpless about it.

  10. looks like someone is a bit full of himself just after enjoying one or two ounces of “success”…and I don’t want to come off as harsh but I believe the author cut out the part of the interview where Alec said “look at me, look at me, look at ME”

    stick to snappin’ the shutter, Alec, leave philosophy and history to those who understand it

  11. Full Quote:

    “AS: Well, that photography is just not good for storytelling, yes. I also just think photography was much more interesting 50 plus years ago, and now there is just this overabundance of photography. It’s like saying “What type of art do you do?” “Oh, I do Twitter.” (laughter). I just put these little fragments out in the world, but I would rather call myself a novelist than a Twitterist. And I sometimes feel photography is that.”

  12. I love Alec Soth and his work, but was also kind of disappointed with this interview. Photography isn’t good for storytelling? It was better 50 years ago because there was less of it? I would love to know WHY he thinks that.

  13. fuck, everyone’s breathing the same way as me these days, i’m over it…

  14. That’s a shame.

  15. […] lengthy interview with Alec Soth. Strangely this has elicited some sarcastic and biting comments on A Photo Editor about Alec and his views, particularly his comment that “photography was much more interesting 50 […]

  16. Alec is right, photography isn’t good for story telling that why the mass medium is film and video. Photography (at its best) can be good at a less narrative and more experimental forms of story telling more similar to a novel by a beat poet, say Jack Kerouac then a pop thriller novel by say James Patterson.

  17. How many of you actually read the entire interview before commenting? The internet has not only given us an overabundance of photographs, it’s also given us an overabundance of uninformed commentary on isolated, out of context quotes. Alec does seem to truly understand the nature of the medium and as a professional artist working within that medium, who better to discuss the history and philosophy of it?

  18. Good interview by Daniel. I thought Mr. Soth had some insightful comments, and I certainly respect his work. To pull this comment out of context from the whole is a bit unfair. That said, here is my feeling on the statement: It feels to me a bit like saying that reading and writing was better 500 years ago because fewer people were literate. Although Mr. Soth may not have meant it this way, it sounds a bit elitist to me. Photography is ubiquitous now because of the ease of getting ones images “out there.” I don’t believe this diminishes the inherent qualities of photography. It just makes it more difficult to weed through all the crap to find the original and truly meaningful work.
    As Phillip Lorca DiCorcia has said (I paraphrase): “Photography is a language that everyone thinks they speak.” And like any language, just because you know how to speak it does not mean you speak it well.

  19. One of the most useless pieces of advice I can get as a photographer is

    “you should have been here yesterday”

    pax

    Robert Semeniuk

  20. agreed. as a photographer, storyteller is not on your hand. :D


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