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Alec Soth

  • Dhana, from the series The Afronauts, 2011.

    Surprise! Magnum celebrates the unexpected – in pictures

    From a squadron of flying foxes to two men casually sitting on a train roof, photographers reveal the stories behind the images chosen for Magnum’s latest print sale, which takes chance as its theme
    Gallery19
  • Portrait of C Fausto Cabrera for use with Alec Soth feature only on DISCOURSE #3: The Parameters of Our Cage. Please credit Emily Baxter, SEEN

    Lockdown culture
    'A roadmap to redemption': how a photographer helped a prisoner see beyond his cage

    After a Minnesota inmate wrote to Alec Soth on impulse this year, the two began a freewheeling exchange of ideas on culture and isolation that developed into an astonishing new book
  • Gucci's live look book.

    Gucci closes Milan fashion week with a eulogy to fashion as we know it

    The latest fashion week mixed the physical with the digital and closed with an epic show from Alessandro Michele. Has the fashion world finally changed for ever?
  • From the Instagram feeds of simonewhitemusic , solitudeofravens, photosobscura , spacesarchives, billyparrott and activistnyc.

    Contemporary photography special
    What next for photography in the age of Instagram?

  • From the series Lacuna, 2017 by Katie Bret-Day.

    Contemporary photography special
    The next generation: five leading photographers pick the hottest new talent

  • Julia de Cooker MBS Nick’s Limo svalbard

    My best shot
    My best winter photograph

    A polar limousine, ice skyscrapers in China, a New York snowstorm, Sitting Bull’s descendant at a pipeline protest, and a flying figure-skater … top photographers pick their coolest shot
  • William Eggleston photographed at home in Memphis, TN for the Observer New Review by Steve Pyke.

    William Eggleston: ‘The music’s here then it’s gone – like a dream’

    Father of colour photography William Eggleston has just released his first album, at 78. He talks art and life with – and plays piano for – Sean O’Hagan in Memphis
  • Preacher Man … Joshua, Angola State Prison, Louisiana, 2002.

    Loners, preachers, sex workers and sinners: how Alec Soth captured the real America

    He shot Johnny Cash’s shack, Charles Lindbergh’s bed, Sunshine the sex worker and a prisoner called Preacher Man. As Alec Soth’s monumental series Sleeping By the Mississippi returns, the photographer relives his deep south odyssey
  • Claire, 8th Ward

    Head out on the highway: celebrating the great American road trip

    The desire to discover the US by car is embedded in the American psyche – as a book, now turned into an exhibition, of photographs makes clear
  • Bree, Liberty Cheer All-Stars, Corsicana, Texas (2013) by Alec Soth

    Best culture 2015
    Sean O'Hagan's top 10 photography shows of 2015

    There was Julia Margaret Cameron’s mystical iconoclasm, Maxine Walker’s questions about Black British life and a disturbingly compelling show of forensic evidence – but Alex Soth’s haunted landscapes and eccentric outsiders were what really lingered
  • From the book Find a Fallen Star by Regine Petersen Merkel's Junkyard

    Observer books of the year 2015
    The best photography books of 2015

    A study of fallen meteorites made a big impact, while rural Russia, dying communities and London’s landscape also caught the eye
  • Gathered Leaves: Photographs by Alec Soth

    Sean O'Hagan on photography
    Alec Soth: America's most immaculate, intriguing photographer

    Whether he’s shooting Johnny Cash’s desolate boyhood home or preacher men in prison, Soth’s images are the most sure-footed photography of a generation. Now, his first UK retrospective captures the beauty of a true American original
  • Clockwise from top, artist and activist Ai Weiwei; Charles and Ray Eames; Frank Auerbach's Hampstead Road, High Summer; Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub.

    Autumn arts preview 2015
    Art, design and architecture: what to see in autumn 2015

    Ai Weiwei hits Britain, Turner goes to Glasgow, the Celts invade the British Museum – and Damien Hirst has a crack at curating with the opening of his own £25m gallery
  • A detail from a photograph from Case History, by Boris Mikhailov

    Top of the shots: photographers’ favourite photobooks

    Which photobook would the world’s best photographers grab in a fire? Nan Goldin, Martin Parr and more pick their all-time favourites. Interviews by Sean O’Hagan
  • afronauts

    How photographers joined the self-publishing revolution

    Cristina de Middel's photobook Afronauts is one of an increasing number of success stories for photographers going it alone, writes Sean O'Hagan

  • Robert Adams, Nehalem Bay State Park, from This Day, 2009

    Sean O'Hagan on photography
    Robert Adams: a photographer with a profound sense of place

    Sean O'Hagan: Adams loves not only the empty, still prairie spaces of the American west but also the silence that echoes in them

  • Rinko Kawauchi

    Sean O'Hagan on photography
    Can Martin Parr work his magic on the Brighton Photo Biennial?

    Sean O'Hagan: Photography has long been visual art's poor relation, at least in Britain. Can Parr change the way we look and think?

  • One of Alec and Carmen Soth's untitled shots from Brighton

    The genius behind Alec Soth's Brighton biennial success

    Photographer Alec Soth was denied permission to work in the UK earlier this year. So he handed over the reins of his latest exhibition to a new collaborator: his seven-year-old daughter. By Hannah Booth
  • A collection of self-published photobooks

    Sean O'Hagan on photography
    Self-publish or be damned: why photographers are going it alone

    Creating your own photobook offers creative freedoms major publishers can only dream of, finds Sean O'Hagan – if you're prepared to put in the donkey work

  • 'This is sacrilege'

    From the despoliation of the Pacific north-west to the brutal murder of Smiths songs, the Deutsche Börse photography prize has something to outrage everyone, says Adrian Searle.

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