Alec Soth: Steve Jobs' Family Garage

Alec Soth, Los Altos, Califoria, 2013, 2066 Crist Drive, Garage of Steve Jobs' Family Home

Ever since Alec Soth showed the above photograph during his lecture at Photolucida last year, I have thought about it in relationship to the Artist Stalking Series. It is documented in the manner of Robert Adams but in broad daylight. We do not see the shadows of the neighborhood trees overlapping the geometry like we would in an Adams' photograph, yet it, nevertheless, reminds me of the Summer Nights Walking series. The high noon light makes it less conspicuous, yet the proximity to the house suggests Soth is standing in the driveway. It is a straightforward image concentrating on the formal qualities until one reads "Garage of Steve Jobs' Family Home."

I am thinking about titles (as Soth is wont to do) and how they can force my viewers into other realizations (because photographs of houses from the street are indeed, rather dull). My title Stalking Artists: In Pursuit of Home might already contain too much information. More to ponder in the Rust Belt on the brink of summer vacation...

A Very Short Analysis of "Aperture Remix: A Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration"

The Aperture Remix exhibition is currently on display at the Ball State Art Museum. I was awarded the prize for "most use" the other day when I admitted, in front of a large audience, to visiting it three times with all my classes. I plan on returning before it closes to peruse the small library thoroughly (sounds like a Saturday afternoon well spent).

The premise of the exhibition explores contemporary photographers looking through the archives of Aperture magazine and responding to their influences. Several of my favorites, both young and old, are represented.

Penelope Umbrico, Moving Mountains (photograph courtesy of Ball State University)

Umbrico was paired with the Masters of Photography series. I was less interested in the original mountain images because I had viewed many of them while working at the Center for Creative Photography in graduate school. Umbrico's work was an unexpected homage to the original yet the presentation still maintained her signature style using low technology as an art form.

Someday I hope to see Sunsets (from Flickr) installed in a gallery space. After looking up this link, I am reminded how very few sunsets I see in one year and how that needs to change.

Stephen Shore and Doug Rickard (image courtesy of Ball State University)

I am thrilled every time I get to see a Stephen Shore print in person, let alone his original Amarillo postcards (below). They were just as mundane and dated as anticipated (hard to believe the world looked like that the year I was born).

Stephen Shore, Tall in Texas, 1972 (image via)

Doug Rickard, Mallard Cove Resort, Lake Sutherland, Port Angeles, Washington, August 27, 1973 (image via)

Doug Rickard's internet search results to find photographs that responded well to Shore's  reminded me of scenes straight out of Mad Men. Of particular interest was the above photograph with two compelling formal combinations: interiors and exteriors and warm and cool colors (particularly blue and yellow).

Images of Alec Soth's video, Summer Nights at the Dollar Tree, in response to Robert Adams's Summer Nights (above two images courtesy of Ball State University)

Unfortunately, the most disappointing part of the exhibition centered around two of my most loved photographers. Maybe there weren't enough of Adams's prints in the exhibition or perhaps it was Soth's casual statement:

"Making night pictures, twenty years later, was a struggle. I just couldn't get the blood pumping through my veins. The world I was looking at didn't feel new. It felt like Robert Adams's world. I had a new camera with a video option that I'd never used. I didn't really know what I was doing technically, but that was an asset. It felt good to be a bit lost."

I should review the video away from the space and in the comfort of the living room because I would like to change my mind.

"Somewhere to Disappear"

I can't wait to see this.

"Photographs Not Taken: A Collection of Photographers' Essays"

"Recently, on finishing an interview with a writer, I was asked if she could see my darkroom. 'Of course," I said, 'but wouldn't you rather see my books? They might tell you more about me.'"     - Emmet Gowin

I finally finished reading one book and it's a month into summer! The diversity of photographers asked to participate in Photographs Not Taken is a highlight. They range from photojournalists to fine art photographers to filmmakers to conceptual artists. Often after reading a passage, I felt compelled to look up their work (Laura McPhee for one). I was most drawn to Alec Soth's and Amy Stein's essays as their lack of photographing his daughter and her husband respectively felt like the most "lost" moments of all the ones included.

One downfall is that some of the photographers tried too hard (not all visual artists are writers) - inserting metaphor after metaphor, attempting symbolism for something that is monumental in their eyes but superfluous to the viewer. For instance, the first sentence of Laurel Nakadate's essay: "There was a day that the Southern California sunshine felt like suffocating lava and was replaced by a rainy night with a laughing and bruised mirage called the moon." It was the moment after reading that sentence that I, too, wanted to suffocate.

This book made me consider the images that I wish were visually represented. Two circumstances that spring to mind are:

I wish I had been a prodigy like Jacques-Henri Lartigue growing up and had a better camera to photograph my grandmother before she died perhaps in the style of Jessie Tarbox Beals. Incidentally, Beals did photograph my grandmother as a teenager.

"Russell Russell who was he? Died from serving University." was a University of Iowa professor's obituary in the Daily Iowan that my father saved from the mid 1960s. It had yellowed with age but was still tacked to his office wall in the 1990s. I either wish I had it or a photograph depicting that article today.

There are no big stories associated with these instances. I don't believe a photograph needs to exist to depict everything we experience.  I honestly like having the fluctuating image in my mind to capture many of the circumstances where photographs could have been but ultimately are not.

Alec Soth's "Broken Manual"

One of the Chelsea gallery highlights was Alec Soth's Broken Manual at the Sean Kelly Gallery.


Alec Soth, S., Alabama

Vince Aletti offers a synopsis from The New Yorker: "Soth's subject here is elusive: he seeks out people who've gone off the grid, tracking survivalists, drifters, and recluses to their makeshift lairs. When he finds a bearded man in the wilderness, the picture he brings back can suggest surveillance records or mug shots, but other portraits are unexpectedly lovely and and sympathetic."



One was confronted by this installation upon entry. There is one copy of Soth's Broken Manual hidden inside one of the volumes on display. From the gallery press release: "This highly sought-after, signed and numbered edition is placed inside larger found books, the interiors of which have been carved out to create a secret repository for the manual, an action that mimics the concealment of covert material by someone living a double-life, who must hide evidence of their alternative existence from those around them."


Image above from Soth's website.


Alec Soth, 2006

These photographs are eerie. They reminded me of stumbling upon homeless shelters in the woods near the railroad tracks in Bend, Oregon - one senses someone is nearby but has no desire to confront them. There is an element of danger and of being watched in the photographs without men.


Alec Soth, 2006

I loved the combination of black-and-white photographs with Soth's signature color work. The scale has grown exponentially since I saw Sleeping by the Mississippi in Minneapolis in 2008.

Alec Soth, Edel's Hideaway (Summer)

Even though the above image was not in the Chelsea exhibition, it is one of my favorite in the series. It has the same sense of foreboding as Jeff Wall's Crooked Path, 1991 (below).

Snow Part 2

Rune Guneriussen, Evolution, 2005 (Thanks Laura for the link!)


Paula McCartney, On Thin Ice in a Blizzard


Mike Rebholz


Alec Soth, Untitled, 1995


Joseph Cornell, Untitled, 1967


Doug and Mike Starn


Deborah Parkin, September is the Cruelest Month


Daniel Marchand


Justin James Reed, The Real Unknown

Days 51 - 65: Italia

Ed Ruscha, Hello I Must Be Going

In an effort to pack light for the first time in my life, I will not be bringing my laptop to Italy. I've struggled with this decision for weeks, thinking about buying an iPad so I could update the blog but still be weighted down with my big camera. That wasn't the greatest solution either so I acquired a small camera (that I've plugged incessantly in previous posts) and my only access to the world online will be through my phone at irregular intervals. It's the first time my summer project will not be updated as the work transpires. I don't think it's an ideal situation but that's the way it is has to be for my own sanity as I traipse across Northern Italy through big cities, small towns, over land and water with minimal luggage. I am off for a couple weeks but never fear... one entry will be posted a day until I return... all but one are Italian centric.

This is all in an effort not to look like this:


Alec Soth, Untitled from Perfect Strangers, 1994

Niagara Falls... One Year Later

A year ago yesterday, I floated a cake at Niagara Falls. It still remains an unforgettable experience. In homage...


Tadoanori Yokko, Waterfall Rapture Postcards of Falling Water: My Addiction to My Collection, 1996


The Art Guys, Niagara, 1997 (water and stones from the Niagara River)


Alec Soth, Falls, 2005

More tomorrow with Zoe Leonard (somehow I resisted including Marilyn Monroe).

Family Photos: Part 2

Chris Verene, My Cousin Candi's Wedding with Her Two Favorite Customers from Her Job at the Sirloin Steak Stockade, 2004


Sally Mann, He is Very Sick, 1986


Joel Sternfeld, Man with Training Baby, 1999


Southworth & Hawes, Family Portrait, 1884


Alec Soth, Mother and Daughter, Davenport, Iowa. "'My dream is to be a RN,' wrote Aja. Her mother, Julie, said that she had given up dreaming a long time ago."


Gary Schneider, Barron Family Portrait, 1996


Larry Sultan, Mom Posing for Me, 1984


Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, 1975


Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, 2007


Trish Morrissey, June 17th, 2006
[Morrisey switches places with the woman in the family she finds on a beach. The subjects are being photographed by someone familiar and hardly realize that there is an outsider sitting between them.]


Duane Michals, Letter to My Father, 1975


Bill Owens, Fourth of July, from Suburbia

I hereby promise...

• to utilize the list only as a guide
• to completely disregard it if I see/think of something better
• to not reveal any/everything until I am sure
• to not advertise the content of the work beforehand due to the high risk of failure
• to borrow my friend Eric's philosophy on life and drive through all round-abouts multiple times because I can (and it's fun)
• to refer to Alec Soth's Las Vegas Birthday Book as inspiration (the role of the object, accepting failure, turning everything around to mean something else)
• to not expect concrete answers because I am once again searching for the unattainable
• to revel in not fear the fact that this summer's project is the biggest artistic risk I've ever taken

Part 1 officially begins tomorrow.

In the meantime... enjoy Colin Nissan's Welcome to Paradise and the Las Vegas Birthday Book slide show:

Las Vegas Birthday Slideshow from Little Brown Mushroom on Vimeo.

Day 21 Progress: VB Part 1

Oh the list... intentionally small, unreadable and subject to great changes.


I feel like I will be a little like Alec Soth (above) with his List of Possible Photographic Subjects for Niagara, 2004-2005.



Props you ask? There are always props (how does a photographer of objects work without them?). Preparing the email to my family about "the California questionnaire" prior to getting completely sucked into the thought of buying an i-Pad for the second portion of this trip.

Total hours today: Five.

Where the Mountains Meet the Sea: Mountains Part 1

Richard Long, Line in Himalayas, 1975


Florian Maier-Aichen, Chamonix-Rue Nationale et Le Mont Blanc, 2007


Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Monuments: Crude Oil Prices, 2003-2008


Matthew Brandt, Shasta Lake, CA 4, 2009 (Type C print dipped in Shasta Lake)


Abelardo Morell, Grand Tetons Resort Room, 1997


Mariele Neudecker, Unrecallable Now, 1998


Gabriel Orozco, Untitled, 1992


Martin Parr, From Objects and Postcards, 2008


Gerhard Richter, Davos, 1981


Ed Ruscha, 1998


Stephen Shore, U.S. 97 South of Klamath Falls, 1973


Alec Soth, Cape Girardeau, Missouri


Thomas Struth, El Capitan, Yosemite National Park, 1999


Tilby Vattard, L'autre rive