Alec Soth Quotes

It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass. But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it. And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.

I am scared to even say this out loud, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I am hit where I am earnest, I will never recover. It can sometimes feel like loving the beauty that surrounds us is somehow disrespectful to the many horrors that also surround us. But mostly, I think I'm just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism and hide behind the great walls of irony and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it through the claude glass. But I want to be earnest, even if it's embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, "to me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability. I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it." So I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out and I tell myself, "this doesn't look like a picture, and it doesn't look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful." And this whole thing you've been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect, that's bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this.

But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.

It can sometimes feel like loving the beauty that surrounds us is somehow disrespectful to the many horrors that also surround us. But mostly, I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass. But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.

It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world. I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass. But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it. And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.

We all confront the parameters of our cage eventually. What we do when we reach those bars helps define us.

On my first road trip after the pandemic, I had a nervous breakdown. I felt like I'd forgotten how to take pictures. To calm myself, I'd reread the advice Allen Ginsberg gave to students in the photography workshop he ran with Robert Frank: Ordinary mind Includes eternal perceptions. Observe what's vivid. Notice what you notice. Catch yourself thinking. Vividness is self-selecting. Frist thought, best thought. Subject is known by what she sees. Others can measure their vision by what we see. Candor ends paranoia.

When burdened by the feeling that there are too many photographs in the world, I ask myself if there are too many flowers.

- Picture yourself on a surfboard. Once you find your balance, loosen your grip. Breathe. Accept that no matter how good you think you are, you will fall. Again and again. - We take pictures not only to see, but to be seen; not only to remember, but to be remembered. But when you are surfing, it's best to forget about the people on the beach.

Picture yourself on a surfboard. Once you find your balance, loosen your grip. Breathe. Accept that no matter how good you think you are, you will fall. Again and again.