Alec Soth – Songbook – PhotoBook Journal

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Photographer: Alec Soth (born & resides Minneapolis WI, USA)

Publisher: MACK (UK)

Text: English

Embossed hardcover book, sewn binding, Photographic Index, black & white lithography, printed by Ofset Yapimevi in Turkey

Photobook designer: Alec Soth & Gregoire Pujade-Lauraine

Notes: The black and white photographs in this photobook are extracted from a photo-reportage style collaborative project, The LBM Dispatch, a newspaper like series of publications that Soth and Brad Zellar created as they toured various states, such as Michigan, in the USA. The photographs emulate a small newspaper documentary style, attempting to capture the daily local events that would be of interest to the community. In a newspaper the photograph would have a well-documented caption and probably related to an accompanying story. Many of Soth’s photographs appear more like out-takes that a newspaper editor would round-file. His photographs move between ambiguous & awkward faceless individuals, to full-faced frontal portraits that appear to describe a person. This is the stuff of local news including that which is not fit to print and without the normal newspaper provided context, all together a strange brew.

Other Alec Soth photobooks reviewed on The PhotoBook: Kin Subscription number two (Hido, Mueller, Soth, Nolan), One Day – Ten Photographers, Le Belle Dame sans Merci & Michigan

Cheers

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