Spoiler Alerts: This article contains critical information on ‘Broken Manual’ and ‘House of Coates’

 

“Unlike you, my ambition isn’t about being recognized and celebrated. Just opposite; I want to be left alone.” Lester B Morrison said in the middle of the conversation with Alec Soth.

It is one late night in Alec Soth’s studio. He is a celebrated photographer. His first photobook in 2004 was a trend because of its sophistication and fresh perspective which led him to be a nominee at Magnum Agency which is a social document agency. Even though his book is not mainly about social documenting. His second book in 2006 was acclaimed and has become a legend we mentioned until now. He got an assignment in both journalism and fashion magazines, married his high-school sweetheart, and has a beautiful kid. In the opposite of this long reputation of Soth, Lester B Morrison is a nomad.

This scenario happened in 2006. Soth was in his gray room in his studio which he called ‘the cave’ zone. He was in his late thirties and had a perfect life. The conversation between Soth and Morrison occurred among liquor bottles, books, photographs, and gray wall Soth painted to mimic the real cave. His kid and wife were at home near the studio and may sleep. There was only Soth and Morrison in the middle of that night.

“I want to be invisible.” Morrison said

“I always have that battle going on.” Soth said four years later, “I think about it a lot. even yesterday”

The contrast between fame and being invisible.

The life that society told you to chase and the life outside society expectation.

Reality and Dream.

Soth’s photobook stands in the area between it all. His book is not documentary, still life, portrait, nor landscape, but it is everything combined, then told that story with emotions. It is poetry as it does not contain rhyme or grammar. It focuses on the feeling despite the story being blurry, heartbreaking, or how weird it is.

And we all as people tend to tell our story in an emotional way like this.

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Since the world knew of photography in the 19th century, American midwest area was passed over by the photographers. There are the East coast’s coolness of cultural pot as New York; the West coast’s Hollywood glam as California; and soulful exotic of South as New Orleans, but Midwest areas like Minnesota have never been a spot. It is too bland, too ordinary. “Most U.S. newscasters train their voice to have Midwestern accent, a kind of non-accent.” Soth said. That explains why ‘Sleeping by Mississippi’ was a shock to the audience when it was first published. Its perspective on Midwest America was what has never been seen before.

Why Mississippi? Because the Mississippi River runs through Soth’s hometown – Minnesota, the state in the Midwest. He grew up in a family where his mother was an interior designer and his father was a lawyer. He has one brother. His hometown is not a city, and also not so rural. Soth has a very ordinary life.

Soth was an introvert. He played alone in a field behind his home and didn’t know what he wanted to grow into. In the ’80s, where society did not push us to rush into a self-seeking process like nowadays, so he didn’t feel that not knowing his identity or future was abnormal. His passion for art was lighted up by his teacher in his 10th grade. He knew he liked art and wanted to be an artist and chose to study arts in the university. Even Soth is good at painting, it is not what he loves “I feel like a fraud” he said, “Doing something good but not like it.”

His life question was answered by Joel Sternfeld, when he came lecturing at his university. Sternfeld is an acclaimed photographer. His work, ‘American Prospect’, is a legend on the same scale as Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’. Soth’s passion was all about Sternfeld’s road trip in his van around America to take photos. Sternfeld shot America’s ordinary through his sarcastic lens. That lens made ordinary extraordinary.

Alec Soth’s ‘Sleeping by Mississippi’ rooted in the ordinary. It is about people and places that he met when he travelled along the Mississippi River. His next book, ‘Niagara’, is about Niagara city that he spent months at. While Sternfeld saw sarcasm in ordinary objects, Soth sees humans in ordinary matters.

Soth saw romantic aspects in the place and people that were overlooked. He shot a motel, gas station, and abandoned swimming pool as it contained memories. All those letters, glasses and rings in his photograph delivered emotion. People in his photographs were social outcasts. He shot prostitutes, religious fanatics, crazy dreamers, old women, nerdy kids as they are human with their own stories, as they are so normal. “I think I am a weirdo too.” Soth said when the interviewer asked him why he shot these kinds of weird and unpleasant people / places / things and can make its sophistication every single time.

Hence, Alec Soth’s photobook is poetry to the ordinary. They don’t even have to be beautiful. It is extraordinary in its own way.

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Soth first met Lester B Morrison when he started a new project. It was 2006 after ‘Niagara’ was published. He was driving along the road to track how the Olympic bomber escaped the police for 5 years and to visit a cult monastery in the forest. Soth’s interest was the desire to disappear. At the same time, he started to question his establishment as a photographer, his reputation, and his future. When he got home. He found Morrison, another man who escaped society but not because of law or religion as the one Soth was tracking. This man just wanted to disappear.

Morrison gave ‘The Big Manual’ to Soth. It is a manual book on how to disappear containing drawings, poetry, collage, and how-to. Soth took a road trip again and photographed to illustrate Morrison’s ideas. It is also the excuse to leave his everyday life to seek another life that he may grow into, the life where he in his forty still dreams of. “A lot of the project is about the contrast between the romantic or idealistic dream of escaping, and the rather sad and potentially pitiful nature of that kind of reality.” An art writer – Aaron Schuman once said to Soth.

“That’s true. it’s about myself in some ways and is about that specific culture or tradition of the American white guy wanting to get away from it all. In America, there’s this kind of obsession with the black-hatted cowboy – the misfit, the recluse, the outlaw.”

Morrison’s manual book showed Soth the reality of the outcast. It doesn’t cool like ’80s cowboy movies. They are people who lived in the forest, van, or cave. Soth took a photograph of these people and their stuffs as always. He brought it back to the studio and arranged it with Morrison’s manual. He also included a conversation between Soth and Morrison.

It was 4 years that ‘Lester B Morrison’ is a familiar name in a book published by Little Brown Mushroom – the publisher that Soth founded. His name was familiar in Soth’s photograph as well. We see Soth wandering in Morrison’s Nomadland with a delicate lens. Soth’s photograph showed hermit as a normal person. They just old men who have their own choice of lives. Their stuff was a cheap industrial product but it looks lively when it comes to Soth’s view. He did what he was good at again and again. Soth told the humanly side of all weird stories.

One day, Morrison disappeared from Soth’s life. The book ‘House of Coates’, published in 2012, was the last book that mentioned Morrison. In this book, Brad Cellar, who was Soth’s friend, wrote about Morrison’s life in a retrospective view paired with Soth’s photograph. It blurs so much that we don’t know if it’s fiction or non-fiction. The conclusion came in the final chapter where a journalist investigates Morrison and finds the shocking truth at a graveyard.

In the published version, ‘The Big Manual’ was renamed to ‘Broken Manual’. Maybe because wherever you run, life will find you.

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“Do you think your work invades people’s privacy and use their identity as commercial value?”

 

The question was asked to the panel. Soth received this kind of question more often in these couple of years. It is 2019, about 10 years after ‘Broken Manual’. Soth transformed from middle-life doubt to be more at ease. He still makes a photobook from road trip but his subject was more about people.

In this present time, we realize identity is valuable. The ethical issue of the licensed right of the photograph should belong to photographer or subject is on the table. In this era where life can change from an ethical issue, Soth was still seeking the answer. “I don’t feel bad for people I photographed. Some of them told me how precious it was to them and that’s my answer to the question but on publishing right, I still don’t know”

With ethical obscure, social trends, and Soth’s non-stop working for 30 years. He decided to take a break. He didn’t take a serious photograph for years. Not even for fashion houses or magazines. “I have an abandoned farmhouse on a little piece of land that I’d purchased years before. I started going there to just experience the weather and the light. Sometimes I just read. I tried to never have an intention to produce anything.” He expressed, “If it happened, it happened.”

A year later, It’s happened. Soth shot a new project that became ‘I know how furiously your heart is beating’. In this project, he wandered America to take photographs of people as he always did. Like this is the thing he was born to do and it is irresistible. “Well, I’m going to do it in a different way. When I photograph people, I want to find a new way to engage with them. Where it’s not driving around, nagging people, talking them into stuff they don’t want to do.” ‘I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating’ is a photobook where people were photographed in their own house so they can feel safe and comfortable to be themself. More than that, the interior of the hose can tell a lot about that person too. The vibe in his photograph seems happier and so does Soth himself. “I think we all know this kind of flow state where we’re each totally in the moment and totally absorbed. It’s not sustainable for anyone forever, but I think having as much of that state in one’s life as possible is great happiness. I think creating a life in which you can be in the moment as much as possible is a happy life.”

Life as working for people in front of us, life in front of us. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, neither ideal nor dream.

Soth grows by doing photographs, both in work and life.

Nowadays, Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom Publisher still publishes photo books, textbooks and experimental books. Soth expands his publisher to a video about photography and art. His photograph appears on books, exhibitions, the library’s wall, and CD cover. He still shoots for magazines sometimes, and use that gray room as a library in his studio. The gray color on the wall doesn’t symbolize the cave that he escapes the world anymore. It means midlife crisis that he surpasses, the persona he abandons at last, the moment where he got lost in life, and how he never walks back.

Finally, who is Lester B Morrison?

The only answer is; that night Alec Soth and Lester B Morrison talked, in the studio, Soth was sitting alone.

Reference: 

1. Alec Soth with Francesco Zanet: Pingpong Conversation (Book), Alec Soth and Francesco Zanet
2. Sleeping by Mississippi (Photobook), Alec Soth 
3. Niagara (Photobook), Alec Soth
4. I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating (Photobook), Alec Soth
5. Alec Soth, Access from alecsoth.com
6. The Big Manual, Alec Soth Meets Lester B Morrison by Fantom 

Access from https://www.fantomprojects.org/the-big-manual-alec-soth-meets-lester-b-morrison/

7. Broken Manual: Alec Soth in Conversation with Aaron Schuman, Magnum Photo, Access from https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/broken-manual-alec-soth-aaron-schuman/
8. The Mississippi: An Interview with Alec Soth, Aaron Schuman,

Access from https://www.aaronschuman.com/sothinterview.html

9. A Conversation with Alec Soth About  Art and Doubt by Tanya Yanagihara, The New York Times Style Magazine, Access from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/t-magazine/alec-soth.html
10. Interview: with Dialogue// Alec Soth by Rim Boshernitsan, The Dialogue, Access from https://alecsoth.com/photography/media/pages/about/3830668158-1588357208/2020_03-indialogue_soth.pdf
11. A Conversation with Stephen Shore by Alec Soth, Financial Times,

Access from https://www.ft.com/content/e81096de-726b-11e9-bf5c-6eeb837566c5

12. Little Brown Mushroom, Instagram
13. Little Brown Mushroom, YouTube