Alec Soth in W Magazine

April, 2007
© W Magazine

I finally got a chance to have the awkward, though quick, inquisitive glance from the store clerk while buying myself a copy of W Magazine. W Magazine, you ask? This months copy, the April issue, features a 26 page fashion spread by photographer Alec Soth.

The concept for the shoot was to photograph young local residents of Walker, Minnesota (and surrounding areas) wearing the high-fashion clothing that Camilla Nickerson, the stylist, picked out. Photographed in their own environments, sometimes personal spaces like bedrooms, the intimacy that Alec is able to capture in his Niagara and Sleeping by the Mississippi series’ comes through here, too. Mixed in with the gorgeous portraits are the still lifes and quiet landscapes of his that I’ve also learned to love. I’m really very impressed with the amount of artistic freedom that W provided him with for the project. And now I just may have a new favorite sometimes-fashion photographer.

Alec shared one of the images from the spread on his blog (I haven’t seen any others surface online yet) and, in return, recieved a lot of questions from his readers. He took the time to address some of these questions here and here.

If you haven’t seen this already, just for fun you may also want to check out this quick video of Alec working on one of the shoots from his assistant, Eric William Carroll’s, blog AMP.

UPDATE: Scans from the magazine have surfaced here. Thanks, Job.