Alec Soth

Photographer / Bookmaker

From 2011: Summertime
by Mark Steinmetz (Nazraeli)

Steinmetz is as wide-eyed and lusty for contact as a teenager as he prowls the American summer in the 80s. Pretty much any book by Steinmetz is guaranteed a spot on my top 10 list.

Life’s a Beach.
MARTIN PARR

A joyous celebration of fleshy human foibles presented as a photo album. In both form and content, Life's A Beach might just be Parr's masterpiece.

American Portraits.
LEON BORENSZTEIN

Working as a traveling portrait photographer, Borensztein produced one of the great documents of the vast and eclectic American working class.

Coexistence.
STEPHEN GILL

The Stan Brakhage of contemporary photography, Gill uses the materiality of the photographic process to explore the big issues. With Coexistence, Gill uses a bucket of water from a polluted pond to explore the meeting of microcosms and macrocosms.

Pictures and Words.
JUERGEN TELLER

A case study in the potential of photographers writing alongside their pictures. Teller's naturally gifted prose is as sweet as his pictures are crude. The result is laugh-out-loud funny and strangely moving.

Jeddah Diary.
OLIVIA ARTHUR

How do you photograph the lives of Saudi women if you cannot show their faces? Using this restriction to her advantage, Olivia Arthur beautifully evokes the desire for exposure and loneliness of concealment.

Elementary Calculus.
J CARRIER

With the never-ending tide of media bombast coming out of Israel and the West Bank, what a relief to spend time with this understated book and quietly reflect on migration, exile and the longing for connection.

On the Mines.
DAVID GOLDBLATT

The genius of Goldblatt's original book from 1973 is the expansive view achieved by inclusion of three distinct documentary approaches alongside texts by both Gordimer and Goldblatt. This gorgeously updated version (which includes new images and texts) achieves Goldblatt's goal to "expand the view but not to alter the sense of things."

Out to Lunch.
ARI MARCOPOULOS

A brilliantly crafted mess of pictures, posters, stickers (and a screenplay!) makes we want to throw away all of my belongings, move to New York and become a graffiti artist.

The Afronauts.
CRISTINA DE MIDDEL

In the thrilling, DIY world of self-publishing, almost anything seems possible. With The Afronauts, Christina de Middel shot for the moon and made the most coveted photobook of the year.

Rodeo Drive, 1984.
ANTHONY HERNANDEZ

Hernandez's street photos indulge in Regan-era conspicuous consumption.

Alec Soth Alec Soth is a photographer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis, and is a member of Magnum Photos. In 2008, Soth started his own publishing company, Little Brown Mushroom.

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