Alec Soth's Flicker Party Assignments

In fall 2010 Alec Soth started to give assignments to his followers on Flicker. He told people to get out in to the world and interact. Soth is trying to guide the participants to find their own process. He says finding your own process is just as important as the subject matter.

Assignment #1: Treasure Hunt

The photographers had to find 10 different subjects that were given to them at the beginning of the quest. The subjects were: pilots, amateur paintings, unusually tall people, museum guards, sleeping children, neighborhood bars, supermarket cashiers, sheep, sedans and suitcases. 

 

I thought this picture by Simon Bates was extraordinary! What are the odds that he found this. And that only because he was told to find sheep. Actually I don't think it's a sheep, it looks more like a ram. I like the way the photographer included the tall grass, giving it a clearer location. It wouldn't have been the same effect if he cropped it tight around the body. I think another part of why I like it so much is because it reminds me of my dad's dinosaur dig. Simon Bates found a real treasure.

Assignment #2

Requirements were to find and photograph a stranger, ask them to show you something and then based on what they show make another series. The idea was to tell a short story. This assignment was inspired by Soth's "From Here To There".

This picture that I'm having trouble uploading was shot by Benjamin Borley. He was the winner of this assignment and shot the spastic lady with the beautiful blue eyes. I picked him, because he did a great job at telling a story and I picked this image because I like the way her personality comes through. The gesture of her hand, the expression on her face, the beautiful light and all that blue. The fact that she is standing on a bridge and that Borley included the railing in to the picture helps to build the setting for the of the story.

Assignment #3

Here the photographer had to go beyond their comfort zone. The idea was to photograph a non-photographer and then letting them photograph you. The two pictures are then put side by side. Alec Soth was asking himself "why are amateur photographers so damn good?"

Breno Rotatori was the photographer that Alec Soth claimed not even trying to make a good picture. After looking at all his entrees I thought that Soth picked the worst ones. My favorite combo is where the picture on the left displays a family portrait and the picture on the right a grandma taking a picture. Then my eye jumps back to the family where I have to search for Rotatori. I find him at the bottom of a V shape formed by two columns of the building, then I recognize that the picture of his grandma also has a V shape formed by the surrounding family members. I also see that him and his grandma had lots of fun playing camera-tag. This process does give the images a new dimension, sort of like in a film where it flips from one persons p.o.v. to another.

Assignment #4


Alec Soth told everybody to plan an encounter. The assignment was to meet someone on Craig's List and find the highest place in town to go for a 8mile walk. Then they had to document the encounter and combine the images with text. He said that the writing has to be visually compatible with the photographs. Soth also mentioned that less is more in this assignment.

Pavel K. Hailo, the winner of this assignment did a great job narrating his experience in his "Hide and Seek". I love that he used a notebook and his own handwriting, it is as if I stumbled upon someones journal. It's like I can hear the tone or the rhythm of his voice. The image I picked was of the drunk 14 - 15 year old lying in the snow. I can relate to what he said about being to shy to get any closer, I wish he did. I have photographs of those moments as well. At the bottom of the page he added that he left her there in the snow, that comment rite there is a perfect example of documentation of the encounter. By telling me what happened after he took the shot. The only thing he didn't do was to meet a stranger from Craig's List, but that doesn't bother me since he did photograph strangers after all.