"Why take pictures?" and other debates at the Soth Flickr project
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Visual Arts

"Why take pictures?" and other debates at the Soth Flickr project

 
 
Alec Soth’s “From Here to There” project has hit its stride. Participants have gotten comfortable with its parameters — shooting a list of 10 things out in the world, or combining any number of those things in one image — and also with discussing deeper questions related to the assignment and photography itself.
 
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Tony Huang's image captures two things on the list: a pilot and a sleeping child
tony.huang wrote “This seems like too much fun to sit by the sideline,” and posted some particularly intriguing comments:
“I am using this assignment to rediscover taking ‘pointless’ photos. After experimenting with thematic photo projects, I stopped snapping away at the world around me. It is getting to the point that I don’t even have much to show for after a trip. It is a bit odd because the pleasure in taking snapshot singles is what attracted me to photography in the first place. Could it be some kind of innocence lost?”
 
He posted a lucky find from the weekend, at left.

 

Sedans, one of the list items, have sparked a surprising amount of discussion, mostly over how one defines them — pointing to the mix of international participants who have signed on.   

Tom Henkel at CHIEFTAIN STUDIO noted that he has changed his approach to the assignment, going out “with the list in the back of my mind” instead of “specifically looking for things.” That yielded his favorite submission to date (below), of not one but two sedans: “it has a quirky quality I like — dirty old car collecting junk, sitting next to the shiny new replacement.” 

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“Old(s) and New” image by Tom Henkel at Chieftain Studio
 

gofeetgo (Hannah Pierce-Carlson) says that in order to make a picture from objects on a list, “they have to be actually relevant to the story I’m already telling. ‘How can I link these things on the list to my relationship to the world?’ is one question to ask.” 

Questions aside, she went on a  roll, capturing a sleeping child, a pilot, a suitcase, and sheep — 4 out of the 10 items on the list — while traveling from Taiwan to Indiana. Here’s her text-and-images account: 

“The last two days went like this. My last afternoon in Huwei, Taiwan I got driven in a sedan to a nursing hospital/hotel to say goodbye to my boss, post-labor. I walked in her room to find her sitting in a rocking chair watching her sleeping newborn on the TV.   

P1190454a  

12 hours later, Pilot Captain Sweepanthreepron of Thai Airways welcoming us aboard.  

P1190461a  

Suitcases(?) in Incheon Airport, South Korea (no, just kidding)  

  

Suitcase in Incheon, South Korea  

  

Then 14 hours over the Pacific, another flight across the Midwestern U.S to Indianapolis, where my in-laws picked us up in a Heavy-Duty truck and delivered us way out to a small town in the corn fields, where this morning I woke up to what they call “Severe Clear” skies and the peaceful emptiness of a spare American neighborhood. We took a walk to visit some sheep at the end of the street. I like this treasure hunt.  

P1190562a Real sheep in Greentown, Indiana, USA 

Rounding out the update on “From Here to There”: a couple of submissions that have people checking “amateur painting” off the list:  

image by Kate Wilhelm

  

 

painting + door image by Rosalyn Song

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