Jennifer Yoffy  00:06

Welcome to Perfect Bound. I'm Jennifer Yoffy, the Founder and Publisher of Yoffy Press in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a podcast where we talk to artists about their journey, how they got where they are, what right and wrong turns they made along the way and where they're heading next. Alec Soth is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He's published over 25 books, including Sleeping by the Mississippi, Niagara, Broken Manual, Songbook, I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, and A Pound of Pictures. Soth has had over 50 solo exhibitions, including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, and Media Space in London. Soth has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2008 Soth created Little Brown Mushroom, a multimedia enterprise focused on visual storytelling. Soth is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel gallery in San Francisco, Loock gallery in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum photos, please welcome Alec Soth to the podcast. Hello

Alec Soth  01:29

I figured it out.

Jennifer Yoffy  01:30

First try.

Alec Soth  01:32

Alright, here we go.

Jennifer Yoffy  01:33

How's it going?

Alec Soth  01:34

Good.

Jennifer Yoffy  01:35

So we've met Yes, we have met. Yes, we had. I don't know if you'd remember. But we had like coffee or breakfast in Athens. I remember the muffin being really delicious. Not so much what we talked about, but food, it usually sticks with me.

Alec Soth  01:52

I don't know if that's a compliment. (laughs)

Jennifer Yoffy  01:55

It's not just you, it happens with everyone. Um, and then...

Alec Soth  01:59

And, do you prefer Jennifer or Jen?

Jennifer Yoffy  02:01

Jennifer?

Alec Soth  02:02

Okay, phew. Well, there's, there's actually, there's a professional person in my life, who I would always address Jennifer. And then I realized, like, I was the only person in the world that called her that, you know, so...

Jennifer Yoffy  02:16

Most people do it the other way. Yeah. And I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and lived there my whole life. So I like didn't meet a lot of new people. You know, like the people I went to elementary school with were the people I went to high school with. And everyone just always called me, Jennifer. And a couple times, if someone would come over and call me Jen or Jenny, my mom would yell at them. And say, that's not what we named her. And so when I went to college, which was in the north, everyone shortens everything. And so I would introduce myself as Jennifer and some I'm like, Oh, I'm Jennifer. And someone would say, Oh, Hi, Jen. And I'd say Nifer. And then people started calling me Nifer.

Alec Soth  02:55

Ah!

Jennifer Yoffy  02:55

That was always hard to shake. I was like, this is really going in the wrong direction. But thanks for asking. So I hadn't originally planned to start the podcast this way. But I remembered about 20 minutes ago, that Aaron Schumann wrote a bunch of stuff for Gathered Leaves for the back of those cards...

Alec Soth  03:19

Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Yoffy  03:19

And I interviewed him probably like six months ago for the podcast. And I never met him before or never spoken to him and like, fell in love with him, like declared him in the moment to be my best friend.

Alec Soth  03:20

Yeah, he is fantastic.

Jennifer Yoffy  03:35

I was like, I'm not really giving you a chance to consent on this, this is just the dynamic of our situation. (laughs) These days, it's a little tough, but... It is, it is, it is. But I was curious, like what I loved about reading or rereading at this point, but I guess the first time I read it, I didn't know Aaron. And so rereading them 20 minutes ago was like these anecdotes and these little snippets of conversations. And I love the compilation of random sentences from emails from 2004 to 2015. And so it was like, I got a really good sense of Aaron and of you through reading that which felt really special. So I'm curious how you've obviously had a relationship with him for a very long time. And I wanted to know more about how that started. And kind of what the dynamic is. Concensus is an important word. (laughs)

Alec Soth  04:33

Yeah. Well, I mean, one thing to know about me is that I have an awful memory. And, oh, I definitely don't remember which muffin I had. And all of the past is murky. So I don't really know how it started with Aaron. I mean, way back in the day I was I was big into blogging. And, and so my sense is that he, I don't know if he was a blogger, but he was in that universe of people. And, you know, and the other thing is that I, you know, I live in Minnesota, so I'm not in, you know, New York or London or whatever. So it was I, I think it was a largely email relationship for a long time. And then we've done various events over the years. And, I mean, he is, you know, as you know, an esteemed photographer, and educator and all that stuff. So it's kind of weird that he's like, my personal biographer, at this point. (laughs)

Jennifer Yoffy  05:44

He is, I know! (laughs)

Alec Soth  05:45

He knows more about me than I know about myself, because I share the memory. Exactly. So but it's really it's fantastic and it's fantastic to have that be a photographer. So someone who really understands what we're talking about.

Jennifer Yoffy  06:01

Right? Yeah, he's just such a delight. Oh, my gosh.

Alec Soth  06:06

By the way, are we in it now? Is this like, are we doing the podcast?

Jennifer Yoffy  06:09

Oh, yeah, it's all fair game now. (laughs)

Alec Soth  06:10

(Laughs) Okay, so you've declared your love for Aaron, live?

Jennifer Yoffy  06:15

Yes. Okay. Yes.

Alec Soth  06:16

You're not editing that out?

Jennifer Yoffy  06:18

No, no, no.

Alec Soth  06:19

Do you edit these things?

Jennifer Yoffy  06:21

I do, yes. But I edit them myself. So I try not to say too many stupid things that I have to later cut out.

Alec Soth  06:30

It's the consent thing is going out for sure. (laughs)

Jennifer Yoffy  06:32

(Laughs) I don't know, I don't know, we just brought it up again and I'm not that great of an audio editor. So I'll have to leave it on. Yeah, we..., anyway, he's wonderful. You also agree, and, and he is just like such a thoughtful person. And like you said him being a photographer, it's a wonderful dynamic. I really, really, really enjoyed reading those pieces.

Alec Soth  07:00

Oh, that's great.

Jennifer Yoffy  07:01

That was exciting.

Alec Soth  07:01

Yeah, that's, that's actually a good source of information. I forget about those cards. And recently, I had to provide info to a writer and that is a great source. I should have provided that.

Jennifer Yoffy  07:15

Yeah, you should have just given the writer Aaron's number.

Alec Soth  07:18

(Laughs) Exactly, yeah, or just had the camera off and have Aaron do this for me.

Jennifer Yoffy  07:24

Exactly. So I want to talk mostly about your new work. Because that's the exciting stuff that you have coming out. And I've read a bunch about it. And looked through it...

Alec Soth  07:36

You've probably haven't seen that much...

Jennifer Yoffy  07:39

 Not in person at all,

Alec Soth  07:40

Sorry we didn't give you a book in time. It's, you know, these global shipping problems, but...

Jennifer Yoffy  07:45

I am very familiar with global shipping problems with books right now. It's a, yeah, troubling. But, but I was also reading a bunch of interviews that you've done in the past. And over time, you've moved from being more focused on storytelling, and the narrative to more of like, kind of a stream of consciousness maybe approach to making work. And it seems to me that A Pound of Pictures, this new project is the farthest kind of on that spectrum of going into that. So how do you, yeah, do you agree? How do you feel about that? What's your take?

Alec Soth  08:25

I don't necessarily agree. I mean, I think what happens is, is I mean, I see it on a spectrum, like I see narrative on a spectrum, and, and I just feel like it's the seesaw, and I just, like, keep going back and forth. And, and, and I never know if I'm in the sweet spot. And it's kind of it's also related to accessibility. And I'm always struggling with how accessible I should make my work, you know, because I like that about photography. But at the same time, I want to challenge myself and I want to challenge other people. I don't want it to be too easy. So I'm, I'm always like back and forth between things that are more experimental and more narrative, I guess. And this particular project took so many different turns. In fact, and you would know this, but it was a totally narrative project, in the sense that it was to be published originally as a diary. Ah, yeah, so I was gonna like chronicle the making of the pictures. The text was gonna be right next to the images and then eventually I abandoned that.

Jennifer Yoffy  09:56

Why?

Alec Soth  09:59

The full backstory is that this started as a totally different project, which was, which was about Abraham Lincoln's funeral train, and I was following the route of his train. And that was going to be, I guess, you know, in the spirit of something like Sleeping by the Mississippi following a path and making work along it. Except that I had more constraints to it, I was gonna photograph only in a certain time of day, and a certain elevation and all these rules. And it all felt stifling in the end and enforced, and I abandon that. And then I started a new project from the ashes of that. And, and that was actually called A Box of Pictures. And the idea was, that it was almost gonna be like, my midlife book of essays reflecting on the medium. You know, it seemed people like Robert Adams and Stephen Shore, write these books, these essay books, and I've had a desire to do something like that, like I had earned enough credibility to talk about the medium. And I was going to do it that way. And in terms of publishing the book, with Michael Mack, we talked about this diary, and then maybe there would be a separate book, which would just be like, the strongest pictures, so you could see them on their own. But that diary book was going to have hundreds of photographs, and they would be smaller, tons of text. And then the pandemic hit. And suddenly, you know, there was like, a year, it was like a diary, and then a year, and then I was gonna start again. But it how was I gonna acknowledge the pandemic, this big gap, everything that had happened, it just, like, didn't make sense anymore. And so much had happened, obviously, during the year, besides the pandemic. You know, living in Minneapolis, Black Lives Matter, like all this stuff. And it just seemed kind of ludicrous. And I couldn't solve that problem. So then I had to kind of reboot again. And then it became much less narrative, though at the back of the book, there are these notes to a number of the photographs, much like there are in Sleeping by the Mississippi and Niagara my first two books, which, which shows that tension, I always have like, to tell the story not to tell the story. And then I'm always like, oh, hide it in the back. That's my solution.

Jennifer Yoffy  12:57

Its worked. (laughs)

Alec Soth  12:58

Well, it is one way to go about it. And it's interesting to think of it in exhibition terms. Because like, the strategy that I've liked using the most there is, is not wall label text, but a sheet of paper that someone can carry around with them if they want to.

Jennifer Yoffy  13:20

Okay, yeah.

Alec Soth  13:23

So that ideally, you can experience the work without that. And it's just an it's an added layer for those people that that want it or, and want to go deeper, I guess? Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy  13:36

When you'd said in the short film about the work that's on the gallery sites, you say that, like part of your practice is to pay attention to your own attention. And which is interesting, because to me, so I tried to do these meditation apps very unsuccessfully, for the most part, but that's what they're always saying is pay attention to your own attention. And when I have heard you speak a couple of times years ago, and you talk about that you had this kind of transformational meditative experience that made you question how you approach photography and why you make it. So how would you say..., was that kind of the shift? Where you shifted from maybe trying to tell a story to looking at looking?

Alec Soth  14:27

That's a really, that's a really insightful question. And and I haven't really, you know, talked about this new work, so I don't have a snappy answer to that, so I have to reflect on it. I do think..., so what happened with that meditation experience that really shook up my whole creative process during that period of time for sure. And that actually became really non narrative, I would say. Maybe that was the furthest reach. And then And then...

Jennifer Yoffy  15:07

and what work would you say, represented that like, what kind of...

Alec Soth  15:12

I think the furthest reach was work that you've never seen, which is this work I did in this, I bought this, this this abandoned farmhouse and I did all this work out there, a lot of it was not even photographic. Some of it was like, I was making musical instruments out of the house and performing it. And I was like, building sculptures on the property. And, and I, I didn't even feel the need to document most of it. And because it, because in that state of mind, I was just going with the flow. And it was wonderful. And I was super happy, and everything's great. The problem was...

Jennifer Yoffy  15:58

Your galleries were like, uh, Excuse me? (laugh)

Alec Soth  16:01

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, because my galleries were actually supportive, amazingly, but, um,

Jennifer Yoffy  16:11

They're like, he's going through something.

Alec Soth  16:12

(Laughs) Right. But for myself, I've I felt, since I felt no need to share it. It was almost like its own meditation practice. Like, what's the point? And, and so it was, it was a little bit of a crisis is a strong word, but I thought, I reached like a fork in the road, where it's like, well, either I keep going that way and I'm basically kind of retired as an artist in the financial sense, or I continue to make a living. And I have to kind of pull back into and take this back into photography. And that's what I did. And I found my way back to making pictures again. But the further I went in that photographic path, the further away I got from that other state of mind, because they are a little bit contradictory. And, and I've always felt this way, I feel that that this desire, you know, to, like pin down experience is just like, fundamentally opposed to living in the moment.

Jennifer Yoffy  17:24

Yes, yes. That is so true.

Alec Soth  17:27

And, and, and this is, this is annoying, and it's also a bit of a cliche, but but I find that my photographic work is stronger when I struggle, just a fact for me, and God knows I've been struggling. So I'm not in that blissful state of mind, which is almost it required, almost like monastic devotion. So I'm in a very different place, but long winded, I think I have, in fact, applied some of what I learned to my photographic practice, and I haven't even thought of it exactly in those terms. But, but it's true. And, and in the same way that I said that, like narrative is on a spectrum, I think that this this kind of mindfulness, or whatever you call it, is on a spectrum. And, and certainly applying that to my photographic practice is a good thing. It's just taking it all the way, then it becomes no point and makes the pictures untenable.

Jennifer Yoffy  18:49

Do you think that it applies to your portrait making practice because I read like early on, you're kind of more assertive, maybe. And now you're more observant, just kind of letting it happen.

Alec Soth  19:02

Yes, and again, I I fluctuate. Because one of the things during that time when I was really concerned with those issues, I stopped doing editorial work. And because editorial work, you have to get the picture, right. You can't go back to the editor and say, like, well, I felt like I was imposing my will.You are imposing your will.

Jennifer Yoffy  19:29

Thats what they're paying you for.

Alec Soth  19:30

Yeah, so the moment I started doing that, that muscle was activated. And I'm just I'm always in a bit of a wrestling match with the with the ethics of portraiture for sure. Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy  19:46

How do you resolve that for yourself?

Alec Soth  19:49

I don't I don't think it can be resolved. I think you know, I think there's always well, I should say that at the point of taking the picture, I don't have a problem with it. Because I'm always getting consent.

Jennifer Yoffy  20:09

I was gonna say, that is an important part. I would like the record to say that I agree that consent is really important in all cases, even best friendships.

Alec Soth  20:23

It's actually not entirely true. Also, I should say that sometimes people are further away, whatever. But, but if it's a true portrait, you know, there's consent involved. And, and very often, most often, it's a positive experience for the person I'm photographing. The problem comes later, the putting it out into the world and selling it.

Jennifer Yoffy  20:51

Is it because you feel that that person just doesn't understand, in the moment when they're agreeing to have their picture made, they don't fully grasp what the full trajectory of this will look like?

Alec Soth  21:04

Absolutely. Because just almost nobody has the context for fine art photography as we know it. And you can explain it to them, but they don't really get it.

Jennifer Yoffy  21:16

You're like, No, I'm really famous. I'm gonna be everywhere. (laughs)

Alec Soth  21:22

(Laughs) And, of course, the the thing is that, like, you know, 99% of the time, the picture ends up nowhere. And it's, and then that sense, it's, that's the easier part of editorial photography is like, it's gonna be in this magazine, etc, etc. So for myself, it's like, well, it may end up on a gallery wall. And then like, what's a gallery, then I'm like It's different than a museum, and it's for sale, and it's just like, no one understands. And with my last project, I did explain all of that in advance of the photoshoot. So because they were set up sessions, and so the person could research me, so like, everything could be known. And then we're, like, done with that part of the conversation. You can't just on the fly, when you're like, driving around taking pictures, it's just too hard. And so I just, yeah, there's an ethical issue with that. And, and even when people give full consent, and all of that they, there can be a change of mind later, because, oh, I didn't think I was going to look like that or what have you. So.... Yeah, I understand that. What? What image from this body of work, left the deepest imprint or kind of stayed with you the most and why? I mean, you said that you included notes on some of the images in the book. Is there one or two that just really stick with you? It's, it's, it's evolving, because now what's happening is that I'm, I'm experiencing other people's responses. And that's shaping my own experience. And, and my bad memory of the actual picture taking is beginning to drift away a little bit. But a real a real, a favorite picture is there's this photograph of a woman with flowers. And she's sitting on the ground. And this is in Oklahoma, in Tulsa. And it was just a magical experience the making of this picture. It came after a time period where I was really, really struggling. This is like once the world opened up again, I want to say the pandemic ended. But when I was able to travel again, I really struggled.

Jennifer Yoffy  24:11

Why, in what way?

Alec Soth  24:13

Yeah, maybe we should talk about that. Because, well, I do think it's it was it's, it's to me now fundamentally, what I was, what this work is, is my own neuroticism and getting away from it. That's this like meditation element. And it's coming back to photography and to seeing and remembering how to do that over and over again. And to see like a beginner or like a beginning photography student, and to try to get to that place, which is why...

Jennifer Yoffy  24:58

Because you were kind of out of practice of it or...?

Alec Soth  25:03

Well, because,` so in wanting to write this, these essays on photography, I want, I want to speak positively about the medium like I, whenever I lecture, I try to check myself so I don't sound too jaded, because it's really easy to sound jaded. And you can say there are too me pictures in the world, Instagram is ruining everything, whatever. And, and then you realize that like, photo students, they've just had their first experience in the darkroom, it's like, magical, they're not worried about too many pictures or whatever you like, they're loving it. And that's what it's about, is that place and, and I think, when photography is great for myself, all that falls away. And I'm in that mindset. And so for me, what I'm trying to teach others is the thing I'm continually trying to teach myself is getting to that place. Just this pure love.  Pure love, being in the moment. And, and, and using the medium to sort of feel alive. And, and what happened with the pandemic is that, you know, I became closed down in my little bubble, it's all thinking in my head. And, and a lot of it about these socio political issues and economic issues, racial issues, everything. And so there's like, swirl of stuff going on in my head. And then I go back out in the world, and it's like, oh, I can't take that picture. Why would I take that picture? The world doesn't need to see that. You know, it's like, all that stuff. And I had a breakdown. I mean, I like completely fell apart. And. And then I've, I've worked my way out of it, and we can talk about that. But on that trip, I took that picture of that woman, which is, you know, she may or may not be homeless, I don't know. She's gorgeous. And her face, I mean, there's just like a beautific quality to her face. And she's loving being with these flowers. And that's okay, like, I could enjoy that. And the picture just came together. It's not staged, it wouldn't be bad if it were staged, but it wasn't. And it fell together in this beautiful way. Looks like a Jeff Wall picture and that just happened. And as I was taking it, I was like, Oh, my God, this is like, so like, I couldn't believe it. So it was that kind of experience and it was, yeah, it was. It made me feel good about the medium again, like the putting it out in the world and then selling it for a bunch of money. Do I feel great about that? I don't know. You know, not necessarily.

Jennifer Yoffy  28:22

But in that moment, it kind of all came together in the positive ways that you love.

Alec Soth  28:28

 Absolutely, yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy  28:29

And you said you had this breakdown, you worked your way out of it. What does that mean?

Alec Soth  28:36

Yeah, so on that particular trip, I went alone. I, I mentioned that I would travel with young people. And that became a regular part of this project. But sometimes I travel alone. And for that first trip, I needed to be alone. Because I was in my head so much. And so I went to Michigan, and...

Jennifer Yoffy  29:04

How are you picking the places? You were off the Lincoln project...

Alec Soth  29:09

Yeah, it was off the Lincoln path, but but I would often follow a part of that route and, and I would go to Springfield, Illinois. And anyway, how did I end up there? Like what was I on about? I don't entirely remember what the, again, the bad memory, just something took me that way. Okay, I guess and I guess I did have this desire to maybe explore once again, the Niagara region because because a part of this work was also exploring my past work and revisiting it with new eyes. And I was kind of thinking about heading that way, but Canada was closed. Anyway, I'm in Michigan and I just, I just couldn't do it. I just like couldn't take a picture and and I kind of had a breakdown and and then I decided I was going to go home but I thought well instead I'll like go to some, like rural place and so I went on Airbnb and I found a llama farm. (laughs)

Jennifer Yoffy  30:43

As you do, right?

Alec Soth  30:45

Which I thought was gonna be really bucolic, turns out was like right next to the freeway.

Jennifer Yoffy  30:52

I've had similar high aspirations for unique Airbnbs that turned out differently.

Alec Soth  31:00

It was perfectly nice, you know. If those llama farmers hear this, perfectly nice, but it didn't...

Jennifer Yoffy  31:06

Yeah, you gave it a good review.

Alec Soth  31:07

Yeah, but it didn't restore my soul. And then I was like, fuck it, I'll just, I'll just go home. And then I had this other thought, which was, well, maybe I should just go south. Because, you know, always in the north, there's like this dark, there is this darkness. And, and I thought I'll go to Memphis in particular because I've always had good luck there. And it's like cliche and stupid as it is Eggleston-Ville, um, it works. It's worked for me, so I'll go. And I went there. And before taking any pictures, I thought I was thinking about Eggleston. And I thought, Ah, I'll visit the Eggleston trust, and I'll visit Winston Eggleston. So I reached out to him. And he's someone that I have encountered. I didn't know him well. But, I had just a fantastic time talking to him about all sorts of things in life and, and the lockdown and all of that. But I was also, you know, able to ask him questions about his dad, and in particular about, about his dad's approach to photography, which to me always seemed like, the not neurotic, like, I always had the sense that Eggleston didn't worry about any ethical issues or, you know, just wasn't concerned about how his pictures lived in the world. And so I asked Winston about this. And like I said, Does your dad ever have like, you know, sort of any self doubt? And he was just like, Nope. Not at all.  He's not human. (laughs) Yeah, and he said, like, you know, basically every picture he takes he thinks is good, which is the, the spirit of the Democratic Forest, which is this book that I've, you know, been contemplating my whole photographic career. And, and I thought, Well, I'm just gonna spend the day like, pretending I'm that way. And kind of pretending I'm Eggleston. And driving around Memphis...

Jennifer Yoffy  33:53

Like the fake it till you make it? Yeah, fake it till you make it. And I went to this Buddhist temple, which is something I started doing a lot. Maybe it was right around that time actually, because of that experience. But but there are Buddhist temples everywhere. It's fascinating if you if you Google, yeah, they're like, there will be like 15 in a state and there'll be in like rural areas, they're everywhere. And so there's this one right in the middle of Memphis. And I went there and there was there was this Buddha with all this, like, kind of shabby stuff around. It looked like an Eggleston picture and I and I loved it I because I was making an Eggleston picture, but it was also about not, you know thinking too much and it and it kind of broke me open. And I took more pictures around Memphis. A number of which aren't in the book, but that I loved taking and the experience was great. And that sort of liberated me once again.

Alec Soth  34:08

Because you were just, you were in your own way. Yeah, I was totally in my own way. I didn't photograph people, yet. But at least I was exposing film like I wasn't even doing that before. Ah, and then yeah, and then I worked my way down, you know, further south. And then I was back at it again.

Jennifer Yoffy  35:32

Was the woman with the flowers, the first portrait maybe?

Alec Soth  35:36

Maybe. That'd be good.

Jennifer Yoffy  35:38

Lets just say it was.

Alec Soth  35:39

Yeah, good for the narrative.

Jennifer Yoffy  35:40

Yeah, I think so.

Alec Soth  35:41

(Laighs) Yeah, I should, I should revisit how everything played out. Because this is the funny thing is you make up stories and, and then over time, they become real in your own memory. So because I, I mean, what's, what's really interesting is that this work is actually very similar in spirit to Sleeping by the Mississippi, because you might know this, but that project was something else before it. And it was called From Here to There. And the idea was that one picture led to the next and, and then, and it had a diary. And I have this diary. And, in fact, I, in the first iteration of it, I exhibited the work with this diary next to it. And, and then later, I changed it to Sleeping by the Mississippi, and, and kind of attached that structure to it. I've, you know, I've since gone back and read that diary. And I, like, I have stuff wrong, that I've said about Sleeping by the Mississippi for years. And it doesn't really matter. But that's what happens.

Jennifer Yoffy  36:59

Right? No, for sure. So, um, you've been doing these live performances on YouTube, where you're kind of like a photo DJ, with found photos? How does that connect with the Pound of Pictures work and what made you want to expand the creative process in that way?

Alec Soth  37:22

Jennifer, you've done excellent research for this.

Jennifer Yoffy  37:25

Awww, thank you.

Alec Soth  37:25

Yeah. It's, it's really nice. And, and this particular topic is very hard to talk about, because whenever I try to talk about this performance work, no one gets it. And understandably, you kind of have to see it to get it because it's, I say it's like DJing photos, but it's not. It's, it's, I think, more structured than that. But it's, it's incredibly linked to this project. So what happened was pre pandemic, I was collecting snapshots as a part of A Pound of Pictures. And they weren't to be used in the, in the final work itself, although they might have been used in the diary version of it. But, but this was part of my process is collecting these pictures. And then what happened was, I got approached by someone here locally in Minnesota about doing something performative, basically, and with, with a musician, and a couple of things came together. So I had that collection of snapshots, but also simultaneous to that, I've been working on my lecture technique, basically. Because I've given so many lectures, that over the years, I've wanted to mix it up, and, and I've employed like chance encounters. And, and I started developing multiple lectures so that I could, on a whim, go a different direction with a lecture. And then, most recently, I developed a way of showing books and photographs live on the screen, so it wasn't a PDF, so that I can really be flexible and talk about different things. And, and I had done one of these lectures here in Minneapolis, and it worked out well. So I thought, well, maybe I could use that technique and use these found photos and do something. And so then she asked who I wanted to work with, and and I suggested this guy Dave King who's a legendary drummer, but, but uh, Also from Minnesota, and my age, so it seemed like it would work that we could be in the same place because I, this is not something we could do from opposite ends of the country. And then right at that moment, COVID hit. And it was perfect because we could be together. He wasn't on tour. And we had all this time to... And everyone was looking at screens, everyone was looking for things to look at. Yeah, there was that. But also, it was at the beginning part of it. And so we just came here in this very room. And we just really experimented and screwed around, and we're just like kids playing. And then a structure started emerging. And, and basically, like, seven songs or movements, that all function in different ways. And then we were able to do this live stream version of it. And then things opened up. We didn't, we did one a Mass MoCA. And it's Yeah, so it's, it's all about it's all about physical photographs. And, this also this question of like, pinning down experience, because because the live event is sort of the opposite of photography in a lot of ways.

Jennifer Yoffy  41:29

Right. And, and so you were collecting the photos as part of the project. And the book comes with a couple of photos, right? Or reproductions of....

Alec Soth  41:43

Right. Yes. So I was, I was collecting photos. They were, it's hard to explain this. But they were leading me places. They were like, I would find a photograph. And it might suggest something and I would go explore it. And I was kind of using it that way. And then I got interested in the idea of collecting masses of photos and so I was buying tons of them.

Jennifer Yoffy  42:12

Like on eBay?

Alec Soth  42:13

On on eBay, but what I would do is I would find them on eBay and then I would ask the people on eBay, if I could come visit them.

Jennifer Yoffy  42:22

Okay. And, you have the image of the man with the box.

Alec Soth  42:27

The man in the box, actually, he's not one of those. But there's there's one of all these photographs on a table, that's one of these eBay sellers. And yeah, I spent all day at that house. They have a half million photographs. And, and I spent the day and I got through, like 60,000. And what's what's amazing for that, for photographers, it's just like, I acquired so many photographs that are better than anything I will ever take in my whole life.

Jennifer Yoffy  43:03

Thats amazing.

Alec Soth  43:04

You know,that's so often the case with vernacular work. And yeah, like, what do you do with that information?

Jennifer Yoffy  43:11

Right? That is humbling.

Alec Soth  43:13

Yeah. And again, that's that, like, you know, someone was not thinking and made something completely amazing.

Jennifer Yoffy  43:22

And probably maybe didn't know.

Alec Soth  43:24

And didn't know. Yeah, no, no. And but, but does it have, can it be seen by others, if it's not gathered into some sort of context or given shape? And I guess that, that is where photography as an art form comes from? The picture is a discrete experience and it may or may not involve thinking, but then the structuring of these things, is so difficult and, and that's why I say like, um, you know, a monkey can take a great picture. It's not complicated. But like, putting 50 pictures together in a meaningful way. It's like freaking impossible.

Jennifer Yoffy  44:14

I read that you collect vernacular ping pong photographs.

Alec Soth  44:18

Yeah, that's where that's where it started.

Jennifer Yoffy  44:20

So random and I love it. So do you have a special affinity for ping pong?

Alec Soth  44:25

Oh, yes. I love playing ping pong. Uh, and this goes, this speaks to that beginner sensibility, like I loved ping pong because I knew I would never be any good at it. And you know, like in Minnesota, I went to a ping pong club and thinking I was kind of good and I was the worst person in the whole club. And it's just infinite levels and then and you just like, don't care and you just enjoy the game. Anyway, so I really got into it. And then started acquiring ping pong pictures just on a whim and published a book of those.

Jennifer Yoffy  45:09

Did you really, I have not seen that?

Alec Soth  45:11

It's pretty obscure. It's a Little Brown Mushroom book. But Jeff Dyer if you know, his work, he's he's a big ping pong player. And so as Pico Iyer, who's another writer, and, and so in the book, it's Pico Iyer and Jeff Dyer, who played ping pong together...

Jennifer Yoffy  45:31

And their names are kind of ping pongy.  Exactly. And what's what's fascinating, though, is that their ping pong philosophies are contradictory. So Pico Iyer lives in Japan is like, very grounded. And, and Jeff Dyer is like, super competitive. And like, he wears like a little ping pong outfits. And so yeah, so this book was about that and use my ping pong. I mean, it's like, really obscure.  Wow. Yeah. I love everything about that.  Yeah, um, I have a soft spot for ping pong because I'm not, I have just very low athletic ability in general. But in my 10th grade gym class, which was all female, we had these amazing athletes, like the star of the female basketball team and the female volleyball team and the softball team, and we would do these units of basketball, softball, whatever. And I was terrible at all of them. And then we had a ping pong unit. And my friend Jody Mandell and I were the doubles champion of our gym class, like, just a fluke. But it was like my one glorious, you know, athletic moment. Yeah.

Alec Soth  46:52

Yeah. Well, that's I, I've experienced something similar. And there are a lot of, there are a lot of good ping pong photographers. And part of it I think, is...

Jennifer Yoffy  47:07

There should be a retreat.

Alec Soth  47:08

Well, yeah. So within Magnum, there are a number of them. And my theory is that war photographers are good at it, because they often play while they're waiting. Anyway, so we had a big ping pong tournament within Magnum one time and I won!

Jennifer Yoffy  47:27

Wow!

Alec Soth  47:28

I hate to brag. (laughs)

Jennifer Yoffy  47:30

You know, but the truths the truth?

Alec Soth  47:31

It was beautiful.

Jennifer Yoffy  47:33

Yeah. Wow. So they're questions that I always ask kind of at the end, and we're getting to that point. I've been rambling on.

Alec Soth  47:43

Uh no, I think I've been rambling.

Jennifer Yoffy  47:46

Well, the ping pong, I just had to know. (laughs) What has been the best career decision you've made?

Alec Soth  47:54

Well, that one's easy. Because there was this moment when I was in my 20s. And I decided, at a certain point that I wasn't going to make a living as a photographer that it wasn't possible. Or I wasn't gonna make a living as an artist, I should say, that seemed like too big of a dream. And so I came back to Minnesota, worked different jobs, worked in a dark room. Hated darkroom work as a consequence, and thought it's gonna be really dangerous if I make a living as a photographer, that I'm going to hate photography. And I got offered this job at a photo studio, a pretty high end one. I was way under qualified. I didn't have lighting skills or any of that. But it was good money. And I really struggled with that decision.

Jennifer Yoffy  49:00

Of whether you should take it or not?

Alec Soth  49:02

Whether I should take it. Part of the reason I chose not to take it was because I thought I was under qualified. But the other part was this feeling or this, like gut feeling that this was gonna set me off on a path and I'm sure it would have. And it was really like, the road, you know, split right there. And thank God I took the other path. Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy  49:30

All right. That's good. It's nice when you can...

Alec Soth  49:33

When you have an answer.

Jennifer Yoffy  49:34

Yeah, yeah.

Alec Soth  49:36

Yeah.

Jennifer Yoffy  49:36

Can you talk about a wrong turn you made and what you learned from it?

Alec Soth  49:41

Hmm. Career wise?

Jennifer Yoffy  49:47

I mean, it doesn't have to be but....

Alec Soth  49:51

Hmm, you know, I I don't I don't have a ton of have regrets or anything but something comes to mind, which is, I was listening to a podcast with the author, John Green. He's known as a young adult writer, The Fault in Our Stars, but he's an amazing writer and and he was asked this question When was a time in your life when you were inauthentic? You know, you were performing some other role? And the answers this particular podcasters asked this question, often and people often talk about, like, a time in high school, and they dressed a certain way, or what have you. Anyway, John Green talked about when he first got success. And he went out, and he bought these really great suits. You know, I don't know what they were, Paul Smith or something like that really expensive. And, and he just felt false in them, you know, and I had, there was a similar moment, around the time of Niagra. And I moved to Gagosian Gallery and I was like, Oh, should I get an apartment in New York? And I was like, entering I was, that was a path that I was starting to head down.

Jennifer Yoffy  51:26

Mm hmm. Yeah. That you felt like, was what you're supposed to do given all circumstances.

Alec Soth  51:33

And kind of in wanting it a little bit, you know, like, and I was kind of performing it. And it was, yeah, it's like, I think back to it and I'm like ehhh, you know, and it was not the right... And I don't but I don't regret going to Gagosian. I kind of knew it wasn't the right fit, but, uh, you know, and it was all that stuff that time period a little bit. Yeah. It's like, I suddenly was the popular kid in school. And I, you know, I didn't like beat up any nerds.

Jennifer Yoffy  52:06

(Laughs) Just shy of a beating up a nerd. So that segues well into the last question, which is, how do you define success for yourself?

Alec Soth  52:19

Hmm. Ah, you know, continually finding ways to make it new. But also to keep making it. And they're two different things. I can't believe I still get to do this. But I get to do this, in part because I make a living at it. So I have to make certain sacrifices, creative sacrifices, whatever. If I go too far down that road, I get into trouble. But then I made, you know, but I come back. I experiment, I goof around. I'll play with a musician. And I'll collect ping pong pictures, do all these crazy things and then I'll go and shoot a Gucci campaign over here (laughs). And, and, for me, success is holding those two things in balance. And it's a it's a delicate balance, for sure.

Jennifer Yoffy  53:28

Yeah, no, that's it. I mean, balance in general, is hard in everything.

Alec Soth  53:33

And that's kind of the answer to all of these questions. So it's like about narrative about meditation about all this stuff. There is no answer. It's just like, maintaining balance for a while until you lose it, and then getting back up again, and trying to find some balance.

Jennifer Yoffy  53:54

So true, so true. Thank you for listening to the Perfect Bound Podcast. I'm Jennifer Yoffy. You can listen to previous episodes by going on to the Yoffy Press website. You can also find this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or any other podcast streaming platform. And if you love it, which I hope you do, please go on to one of those places and give it all the stars. Thank you so much again, and I'll see you next time. I was trying to think of what I would collect, and I love rainbows. And so I would imagine that a lot of people take pictures of rainbows, right. It would have to be more..., it would have to be color photos.

Alec Soth  55:00

Yeah, I mean...

Jennifer Yoffy  55:02

Have you seen a lot of rainbow photos, you've seen them out there in the field.

Alec Soth  55:06

I've seen a fair number and I, I really liked them as well.

Jennifer Yoffy  55:11

Who doesn't love a rainbow?

Alec Soth  55:13

Yeah. Well, what's interesting about a rainbow is it's kind of like the moon. It's like, it's always something you want to photograph and it is always a little disappointing when you do it.  But I like that. But that also gets at the problem with photography so often. And so what you'll see with the moon is that, you know, pro photographers, they use these super telephotos to make it look giant. I mean, do you know about the Moon illusion?

Jennifer Yoffy  55:28

(Laughs) Yeah, sooo true.  I'm not sure.

Alec Soth  55:50

So the Moon illusion is that, you know, when you see the moon, it's big. That's your brain doing that. I don't know if you know this.

Jennifer Yoffy  55:58

I didn't know that.

Alec Soth  55:59

It's crazy. So. And I found this very hard to believe when I learned this. But if you like, measure it with your thumbnail, and then once it's small in the sky, you measure it with your thumbnail, it's the same size. So what's happening is your brain is seeing it by the horizon and thinking it's large.

Jennifer Yoffy  56:21

Yes, yes, it is.

Alec Soth  56:23

Yeah. And so which is why when you take your iPhone, like, wow, look at that big moon and you take picture but it's so small. Why is that? And which, which also gets at the problem with photography that....

Jennifer Yoffy  56:39

I was gonna say the problem with my brain. (laughs)

Alec Soth  56:41

Yeah, but it's your brain filling up the world with all this relevant information and, and making things extraordinary. But it's not really there.

Jennifer Yoffy  56:57

I'm going to have to sit with that a moment.

Alec Soth  57:00

It's deep, I know. And check out like, Google this because there's some fascinating examples of it and, and I still don't believe it in a way. And I have to relearn this.

Jennifer Yoffy  57:17

Wow. No, I will, I will.