Alec Soth’s Photographs Capture Our Desire to Run Away
by Nancy Rosenbaum, producer
“It’s not really about running away. It’s about the desire to run away.”
Growing up in Minnesota, photographer Alec Soth fantasized about having a secret cave-like hideout where he could escape from the world. Now in his early 40s, Soth’s captivation with retreat and solitary adventure is revealed in a new documentary, Somewhere to Disappear, which screened Monday night at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival.
Filmmakers Laure Flammarion and Arnaud Uyttenhove drove over 20,000 miles with Soth in 2008 and 2009, capturing his quixotic search across America for monks, hermits, survivalists, and others living a mostly solitary off-the-grid existence. One of the film’s most endearing subjects is a middle-aged man named Clyde Garth Bowles. He lives on a self-created compound in the California desert where he cares with great tenderness for horses, birds, and other animals. “My spiritual theory is my life,” he says.
A production still of Clyde Garth Bowles from “Somewhere to Disappear.”
Soth prefers to travel by car when working, rather than fly into a location. It ups his chances of stumbling upon a serendipitous moment. He also speaks in the film of his longing “to feel carried” when he’s on the road — a reminder that there’s only so much we can plan. But, when we set an intention on the steering wheels of our lives and give way to mystery, we’re gifted with transcendent moments of beauty we couldn’t orchestrate on our own.
The photographs Soth made from these travels are part of a body of work published in Broken Manual. As Soth drove across the country, he kept a list of things he wanted to photograph taped to his car’s steering wheel. It’s a way, he says, of “transforming these ideas in my head into some sort of path in the world.”
Photo by Alec Soth
For Soth, the film is as much a meditation on a longing to run away as it is about our ultimate need for meaningful human connection. “I don’t want to move my family, and go live in a cave,” he assured the audience.
"On Editorial Responsibility" with Photos
Trent Gilliss, Online Editor
Choosing leading images for each program is often a joyful experience. But, the editing is a sensibility game that leaves one restless at times. I want something evocative, differentiating — a photo that captures the bouquet of the program and not just the finish at the back of the mouth. For SOF, this means no stock images, no trite photography, no incredibly small packaged images.
Living in such an editorial crucible can create a rogue mentality, an editor who sometimes forgets to question context and sensitivity to the subject matter, and instead alienates or disregards the an audience’s feelings and intelligence about situations. Alessandra Sanguinetti, the savvy Magnum photographer, questions The New York Times’ choice of a somewhat romantic image for the front page of its January 14th edition — a time when heavy fighting was happening in Gaza.
To give you more context, it headed the article titled “Israel Resumes Attack After Pause for Aid Delivery.” What do you think? How would you rate my choice of images for the SOF site?
