A Pound of Pictures is a Nah
I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it,
I don't like it.
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Alec Soth said A Pound of Pictures is a 'very backward-looking project, looking back over my career.' and so that's all we see, a Soth's same frame he does over his career repeat and repeat over every time we flip.
The Pound of Pictures sounds promising on pages. In the writing and Soth's interview, he always says it's about 'Why we taking a pictures?' 'What's the value of photographs?' 'look to photography as a medium.' 'rediscovering photography' with the story about visiting a house of half a million photographs and Soth himself purchasing a pound of vernacular pictures to insert in the photobook. It sounds like a phenomenon photobook that we get to see photography as a whole concept.
No, I see nothing.
All I see is Soth as always, taking a romantic picture along the roadtrip. With his giant camera that guarantee a creamy beautiful shoot and young assistant who he tries to absorb energy. Wandering around outside his 'shot lists' and called it unexpected. The photobook itself doesn't propose me a question and of course, not a single glimpse to the answer.
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Soth's road trips are planned since his first book, Sleeping by The Mississippi. He has discipline in his process so his book is homogenous. Even his messy project, A Broken Manuel, still has a part where it is sort like a scouting and actual planned one to shoot. Every stop is with a purpose to convey some stories that get along to the big picture.
Alec Soth. Maps for Niagara and Sleeping by the Mississippi (first published in IMA Magazine) (2019)
A Pound of Pictures is planning for a different purpose. At first, the road trip was planned to follow Abraham Lincoln's funeral train 'in an attempt to mourn the divisiveness in America' in Trump's Americana. but when all the plan finishes, the idea dies out of Soth's head. He writes that it 'lifeless'. Interview that he 'wasn’t excited about the idea anymore' so he just went on a trip, 'oriented by an inner compass', and A Pound of Pictures is born that way. Wandering first, Stories follow.
Actually what Soth comes up with is a very interesting and solid question but all I see is reckless process. His beautiful pictures are what his guts said not his head and the vernacular pictures that he inserts just feel like playing an expensive Gachapon.
A Pound of Pictures is actually, just a pound of pictures.
Alec Soth. A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Reading Note
Gideon Jacobs for The Paris Review, Photographic Neuroses: Alec Soth’s A Pound of Pictures (2022)
Claudia Paterson for i-D, Alec Soth travelled from Minneapolis to Memphis, capturing everything in between (2022)
Kirk McelHearn for Pop Photo, Alec Soth on the serendipity of getting sidetracked (2022)
