There I was, surfing the internet, when up popped my TRIBE.NET instant message box. It was a brief message from ALEC SOTH saying he had read my TRIBE profile and was going to be in my area soon and asked if he could meet me in person.
I have met many people IRL that I was introduced to on the net so I quickly answered SURE. He asked what time and I allowed as how i was retired it could be anytime at his convenience. We left it at that.
A couple days later I got another IM from him saying he was a couple hours away and would this be a good time. Again I answered in the affirmative and we exchanged phone numbers. a couple hours later the phone rings and it's Alec seeking directions to my house. Since I only have two parking spaces and both our vehicles were at home I directed him to a lodge on the top of the mountain we live on and told him I'd meet him there.
He was already there when I arrived. he was in a minivan packed to the gills with photog equipment.
After our introduction I felt immediately at ease with him. I have always had a good sense of people and knew he was no phony. That's all that's needed to fulfill my requirements for friendship. I don't care about race, creed, gender or anything else except HONESTY. we don't have to agree on politics , religion, sexual preference, favorite NASCAR driver, football team or any other trivia. If you are not a PHONY you're okay in my book.
I explained about my parking situation and that he would have to unload whatever he needed into my van and leave his vehicle there. he balked at first but soon acquiesced when I assured him his vehicle would be safe there.
When he popped the rear hatch and started unloading I was amazed to see this HUGH OLD wooden box camera he was using. I am an lifelong amateur photographer but I am not up on every trivial aspect of the craft, so I was expecting more conventional equipment. when I saw this, what appeared to me to be, DINOSAUR CAMERA I thought OH NO HE'S A WHACKO! I have had a couple of those visit too.
But I, being a believer in Karma, played along with the scenario. I have long since learned that you never can tell where something is going and have learned long ago to trust my Karma to make life easy for me. It was drizzling as we loaded up my van with SOME of his equipment and he and I ( and my 150 lb. pyranese Suzi ) took off for the house. He rode in the passenger side front seat hugging his dinosaur in his lap like a baby.
It was a short drive to my house and along the way he commented how the photog gods were smiling on us because the overcast sky was ideal lighting for his purposes. That was an important indicator to me, that this was going to be a good experience .
When we arrived at my house I gave him a tour of the cabin as I readied to go to our other place, we call MOARK, which is our alternative camp. He already knew about it and a lot of other things about me from my blog and asked if we could go there first so we were on the road in no time.
On the way I gave him the GRAND TOUR of the area as we passed landmarks and attractions curious to the area.
When we arrived at MOARK he quickly dug out his camera, set it up on it's hugh tripod, and commenced shooting photos. As i already said, I am a lifelong AMATEUR photographer. I have carried a camera with me constantly since an early age. I even made a pinhole camera when I was in primary school and learned to develope my own photos taken with it. But I have always been a photographer of opportunistic scenes and actions that present themselves conveniently. I have never been one for ARTSY photography.
So I was intrigued when he began carefully posing each shot he took. I was even more intrigued when he mentioned that each shot, taken with a glass plate, cost $25. When I quit counting at 50 shots I KNEW something IMPORTANT was afoot here. If someone spends THOUSANDS of dollars on ME for ANY REASON it gets my attention. This was a first in my life so I helped him as much as I could. Trying my level best to perform his directions. I later learned this was an important aspect of his photograhy, to take so long posing his subjects they become bored and at ease making for a natural photo. It certainly worked with me. It took some concentration on my part not to fall asleep on a couple of them LOL.
After he shot all he wanted at MOARK we loaded up again and headed back to SKYRANCH ( my main home) and began to unload. He asked if he could use my walkway to set up his portable studio an shoot some more. I agreed and as we were doing so we chatted and he asked if I had looked him up on the internet. I answered NO , SHOULD I ? he said it might be a good idea so that i would know who I was dealing with. I explained that I didn't care because I already knew all I needed to know when we shook hands. But as he was finishing setting up outside I went inside and fired up the computer and googled his name. I was astounded and impressed at the returns. Here was a FAMOUS photographer shooting a photo spread of ME. THAT really confounded me. WHY would anyone be interested in ME?
My wife, who had returned home in our absence, was speechless and after a brief recount of the days happenings and introduction to Alec she offered to make a pot of coffee. Alec accepted explaining that he preferred ICED coffee. She disappeared into the kitchen and we went about taking photographs in the portable studio set up outside.
Alec went through my house picking out unusual things to do still lifes of, things that seemed quite ordinary, even arcane, to me. Such as a stack of old newspapers bundled for the re-cycle center or a stack of my homemade, hand labeled VHS tapes or my git and go belt for when I go out in the forrest ( did I mention we live in an isolated rural area on a high mountain lake? ) which held my .45 revolver, 2 way radio, knife and canteen etc.
As he shot photos he patiently answered my questions about photography. I, being a person who believes in learning something new every day, couldn't pass up this chance to learn something from a world class photographer. He let me look under the hood of his camera and I was again astounded to see the image was UPSIDE DOWN. HOW? I thought to myself, can he take these photos with the image upside down? I can barely take a decent photo with it rightside up.
After awhile my wife appeared with the coffee. Alec didn't say a word and I only realised later it was hot not iced coffee. That's the kind of guy he is, Gracious to a fault.
Eventually he ran out of plates for his large format camera ( explaining he had shot approx. 100 photos ) and pulled out his "REAL" camera ( my word ) a latest DIGITAL SLR ( I didn't get what kind ) and began shooting documentry shots as well as stuff I requested. Chiefly being photos of me and my wife and dog etc.
I didn't hear from him again until the christmas season when I received a envelope in the mail containing a christmas greeting and several 8x11 photographs from our photoshoot. A few of them were from the big box camera and a few were from his digital camera. While none of them were MY favorites they WERE HIS. That's not insignificant considering they sell for $1000+ each. They were unsigned though and when I called him to thank him for sending them he said he would sign them when he came again. Surprised, I asked when he was coming back? He asked if he could return with a VIDEO CREW and do a follow up video documentary. Of course I was very happy to learn this, not because of the video shoot but because we looked forward to seeing Alec again.
He said he would contact me when the time was ripe to do so.
Sometime later I get a call, similar to the first, saying they would be here shortly. When I heard the knock on my door and opened it the first thing he said after we hugged hello was that the photog gods were smiling on us again. It was heavy overcast . He quickly introduced me to the video crew consisting of Arnaud the cameraman from Belgium, Laure the audio person (female) and Lola , who I don't know what to call except transcriptionist, both French. No LAST NAMES were given. as far as I knew they were a couple nice young folks doing thier thing. having been there and done that myself I have never been a stickler for last names. i used the same criteria as i do for eveyone and they satisfied that quickly.
left to right. Lola Reboud, Arnaud Uyttenhove, Laure Flammarion, Alec Soth, Ramona LaFontaine . taken at Skyranch Apr.27,2009
After the introductions, which were videoed from before I opened my door, we went inside. After a quick tour of the cabin we settled down in the living room and Alec surprised me with a GIANT PRINT of one of the shots he took during his initial shoot. I guess i didn't mention that the REASON Alec uses the large format camera is because he can make HUGH PRINTS with the clarity of a genuine photograph, not a grainy blowup of a normal photo. That's his forte LARGE PHOTOS. Again it was not insignificant that he gave me this photo. It was HIS FAVORITE of all and sells for $10K+. he signed it as well as the smaller photos he had sent me. I will treasure them forever.
After visiting for awhile at skyranch they explained they wanted to retrace the route taken by Alec and I on his first visit. So we loaded up. This time the video crew in Alecs van and Alec and I in my Pickup truck and took off down the road in an intermittant drizzle with Arnaud hanging out the window of the chase van shooting video the entire time. We did the Eureka tour and eventually wound up at MOARK. They shot video of it too. Alec didn't shoot a single photo this trip, it was all video. We returned to Skyranch and visited awhile longer after which they exclaimed they had to go because it was getting late and we hugged goodbye. The video camera ran the entire time from their arrival until we hugged goodbye. They climbed back into Alec's ( overloaded ) van and drove away.
Though I have never seen them again I do communicate with Alec occassionally by email and phone. Though he is a very busy person he always replies even when I relieve him of this duty in my emails. On one occassion I was curious about what the point of all this was. He explained that it was still a secret but gave me the last names of the video crew. When I GOOGLED them I found out that they were equally well known, though up and coming, in thier own right. Again I was astounded ( I am still astounded ) to find I had been the subject of world class videographers. I was able to get thier emails from thier websites and contacted them. They kindly replied and we have struck up somewhat of a friendship. we have since maintained contact by Facebook..
SOOOO here I sit telling this story, the point of which I still do not know. I do keep up with all of them on the internet. I saw that one of my photos was in a show of Alecs at a museum in Atlanta called BLACK LINE of WOODS. It was titled SL garfield Ar. 2007. He has told me I am in another two of his BOOKS recently published but he hasn't gotten a copy yet. I hope I get a copy of them. While writing this blog I found out about the video This is it . and This is a trailer. I did see where they did a similar project in the past where they followed Alec around documenting another of his works and had a multimedia showing of the work. I really hope I will get at least one copy of anything I am in especially the video. But I am really looking forward to the day when I GOOGLE IMAGES for Alec Soth and one of MY PHOTOS is in the results displayed. I am thrilled that the photo of Alec in the Wikipedia article about him was TAKEN BY ME at the end of my walkway on his first visit. No matter what happens I have reaped the rewards of simply knowing these guys... all of them... and making a new friend in Alec. I will cherish this experience forever and hope we will meet again.
There's an old TRUISM ... EVERYTHING FOR A REASON ! While I do believe this, it is still a mystery to me. Who KNOWS what will come of this?
When I find out I'll keep you posted!.
Soon after I posted this blog, Alec answered in kind.
UPDATE: Sept.7, 2010
heres the exhibition of the book "Broken Manual" I'm in and take a look at the video of the book. The photo of the stack of VHS tapes @ 1:20 was of my VHS tapes and the FLIP OUT PHOTO @ 1:24 is of me. I am also in "From here to there" another of Alecs works.
These are the two photos taken at my place that are in the show. The stack of VHS tapes on left and the one third from the left.
I didn't realise, until after reading THIS ARTICLE that this show is actually about ALL Alecs works. Dang I wish i could go see it!
Update: Sept.12, 2010
they showed the movie on sept.12 here I couldn't attend but they have said I will get a DVD of it.
Update: Nov.12, 2010
They have named the movie SOMEWHERE TO DISAPPEAR heres the FACEBOOK page for it.
still anxiously waiting to see it.
Update: Mar.6, 2011
True to thier word, MAS productions sent me a limited edition ( signed by Laure and Arnaud ) DVD recently. It means so much to us. The movie itself was entertaining and thought provocing.
The score is very nice too.
Here is the latest blog about FROM HERE TO THERE
( contains two photos taken here )
here's a recent interview. I get honorable mention in it. Laure says I'm her favorite because I am FUN....
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/somewhere-to-disappear-film-interview-alec-soth
UPDATE 2023
