3 Photographers - Mike

Alec Soth
In the collection of Alec Soth's works titled From Here To There: Alec Soth's America, a wide range of work from Soth is shown. The most striking in my opinion are the portraits, and how they almost all have a vivid narrative of contemporary America. The photos in the book are a mixture of black and white and color, there are both and they are about equally as prevalent. The portraits tend to be in black and white more frequently than the other photos. Most of his photos, even when not including people, have an interesting feel to them. As mentioned before, almost all of them have a narrative that is interesting to ponder as the viewer. I feel that a lot of the photographs could be interpreted to have a feeling of loneliness, which does make the viewer wonder what truly is happening in the picture.

Ans Westra
Notes on the Country I Live In is a compilation of photos by Ans Westra, depicting essentially what the title implies. Interestingly enough, the titles of Westra's and Soth's are somewhat relative, but the subject matter is definitely different. While Soth does have a decent amount of portraits, Westra's book has many more, and of a completely different style and time. The book was published in the 70s, so all of the photos depicted are from then, and they sure look like it. Westra has a lot of photos that seem to have political ties, all of which vividly display a different time in America where people were fighting for completely different issues than what we fight for today (or, for the most part). She also has photos of what appears to be daily life of many average Americans during the time, at bars, on benches, on street corners, and wherever else. Her photos really immerse you into the scene she depicts, all the same time making you relate to the scene while wondering how it would be to be there.

David Robinson
Robinson's book, simply titled Reflections contains what you first think of when seeing the word. The book is full of photographs he's taken from different reflect-able surfaces. I think although the practice has been seen before, it depicts very interesting ways of doing it and making it look new and interesting. Many of his photos look like paintings, just because the texture of the reflection warps the image and gives it a style that feels like it could be on a canvas. Many of the pictures do include people, and they are usually within the reflections and warped with them, which gives an interesting effect and makes the viewer analyze the photo to try and figure out what is really happening. I like the images because I find many of them visually appealing, I think they may border the line of art and photography a  little more simply because the integrity of the photo is often toyed with to make an image look different than how it would look normally, but I find this experimentation interesting and fun.