Since I’m barely able to connect to the web at my new place in Brooklyn (I’m definitely NOT stealing someone elses right now — shh!) and, as previously mentioned, I haven’t had much time to sit down since leaving for Scotland, I’ve been unable to make posts or even spend a few minutes catching up on the daily reads.

Upon returning, unlike Alec, I have to say I’m not finding myself pondering the benefits of staying disconnected. Though, maybe I should be.

I’m just overwhelmed by the wealth of the internet right now.

But speaking of Alec, I was delighted when Jen took a moment today to point out her recent post about the three-segment interview video with him. The video was produced by Mike Dust for The Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program in conjunction with the Alec Soth: Portraits exhibition held back in March of 2005.

The video clips seem to have surfaced on the jb blog as a continuation of some previous discussion on portraiture by Mr. Jörg Colberg — co-curator of A New American Portrait, opening (mark your calendars and be there) this Friday.

Alec Soth: Portraits – The Ground Glass (3:06, segment 3 of 3), 2005
Video, 8 minutes, produced and directed by Mike Dust
© 2005 National Projects

In segment 3 of the video, Alec talks about how making a portrait of another person can teach about “the space between you the world” and how when a photographer experiences the painterly lushness of a scene coming into focus on the ground glass of an 8×10 they “almost don’t need to take the picture at that point — it’s so beautiful.”

Mother and Daughter, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1999
© Alec Soth

Alec does a nice job of putting the large format process into perspective, pointing out the difference between a spontaneous portrait and one where the sitter must settle into having their picture taken, waiting for the photographer to compose the image.

William Eggleston in his music room, Memphis, Tennessee, 2000
© Alec Soth

Do stop over to Jen’s post to watch the other two videos.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Online, Photographers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.