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Transcription: [00:09:44]
{SPEAKER NAME="Alec Soth"} This was a big step for me simplifying the moment but it's also, for me its part of my theory of portraiture


[00:09:52]
which is that umm well, I had a show, a big show of lots of bodies of work in Paris a year or something ago

[00:10:02]
That was called "The Space Between Us" and and I came up with that name because I always say that I'm not photographing the other person

[00:10:15]
I'm photographing - the space that exists between myself and that other person.

[00:10:14]
Uhm and when it takes its time and they move into their own little world and I'm under the cover

[00:10:22]
I'm dark cloth and I'm thinking. Uhm I'm in my space and I - and I like to feel and that's in

[00:10:36]
playing with this focus, I like to feel how they're over there and I'm over here.

[00:10:37]
if that makes sense. Uh, any questions so far?

[00:10:40]
{illegible question from the audience}

[00:10:59]
yeah, I mean I'm setting up the camera, and uh, and the subject is moving around a little bit, and then you'll see something happen

[00:11:08]
and then you say, "hold that" you know, or she just rests on her arm like that.. "hold that"

[00:11:13]
um, you know, I'm not a purist photographer at all, so I would, you know ,if the flower's under her arm a little bit, I'll pop it, you know whatever

[00:11:25]
I'm happy to move, and i'm happy to move all the food out and do all these things

[00:11:29]
um, it's more a matter of stopping things when I see it

[00:11:35]
um, I really don't like too much sort of banter back and forth

[00:11:40]
and, I don't go crazy with direction, you know,

[00:11:43]
I mean, it's a slow process too, so it's not "boosh, boosh, boosh." You know one of the funny things about fashion photography

[00:11:54]
of which there's no true example, I mean this was done for this fashion magazine project, but when I was in Paris I worked with a lot of fashion models

[00:12:02]
and it's uh, it's really a fascinating thing as a photographer, 'cause you, the second you take a picture

[00:12:09]
they give you another look. It's like built in

[00:12:12]
you do this, then they give you another one. And it's, it's great because you get all these different things, but they're all fake

[00:12:20]
you know, and um, it doesn't work with eight by ten photography at all because they blow the focus every time,

[00:12:28]
so I would have to, you know, yell at them like "do not move after I click the shutter"

[00:12:32]
um, and also and this really relates to this whole exhibition, um just quickly moving on to that

[00:12:39]
I really don't like photographing people that their profession is to be photographed, so um

[00:12:48]
you know, I, as I advance and I did more and more magazine work

[00:12:55]
I developed my "no-CEO policy", um because

[00:13:00]
the number one thing you get asked to do as a portrait photographer is the CEO of, you know

[00:13:05]
I live in Minnesota, we have 3M in Minnesota, or you know we have Best Buy,

[00:13:10]
I'm constantly asked to photograph whoever that is

[00:13:14]
and it's just not my, because they you know, they give you this, and then for eight seconds and they're gone, and that's not why I got involved

[00:13:23]
that's not the "Space between Us" and all that stuff. And I've learned that celebrity photography, model photography, it's, it tends to be the same thing and they're not bad people or anything,they're just, it's just what they do

[00:13:39]
um, so I'll jump way ahead for a second since we're over here, but, eventually I did all this magazine work, I eventually applied to become a member of Magnum Photos

[00:13:55]
which is this organ.. you know, it's an international organization of professional photographers, working photographers

[00:14:03]
and, I, and I started getting better and better jobs

[00:14:09]
and, and Magnum has this thing called "Fashion Magazine" that they do,

[00:14:14]
uh, They did it, one with Martin Parr, they did another one with a guy named Bruce Gildan, and the idea is that you produce an entire magazine

[00:14:23]
of one photographer';s pictures including the ads

[00:14:26]
so, and I was up for this challenge, so I suggest that I do it and they asked me to do it

[00:14:34]
and um, and then what am I going to do?

[00:14:41]
So, because they like to start with a concept, an overall concept for the magazine, and I didn't know what the concept should be

[00:14:46]
so they had some, something about fairy tales or something like that

[00:14:51]
and, uh, this is developed out of Paris, so I went to Paris to start it

[00:14:59]
and quickly this fairy tale thing wasn't working at all.

[00:15:03]
Another thing they had lined up is, you know, first day I went to a Dior fashion show I got kicked out, like within, within five minutes

[00:15:13]
Um, and they set up a bunch of shoots with these models. And it just didn't work, uh that, it's just not my thing

Transcription Notes:
Apologies if there are ny mistakes or mis-transcriptions, this is my first project.