‘I’m making fun of my midlife crisis!’ The great photographer Alec Soth on ‘having a blast’ back at art school

He is famed for capturing Niagara Falls newlyweds and cabin-dwelling survivalists. But when Soth hit middle-age, he set off on a two-year odyssey to tap into ‘the bubbling enthusiasm’ of art students across the US

‘I really wanted to do a book of nude self-portraits,” says Alec Soth. “For better or worse, I’m just an inward-looking photographer.” So why didn’t he? “Photography,” he explains, “means going out into the world and interacting with it.”

That is certainly what has made Soth such a revered photographer. The American has shot naked lovers and newlyweds visiting Niagara Falls, monks and survivalists holed up in remote mountain cabins, and the residents of fading US small towns. But instead of turning the camera on himself in the buff, for his new project Soth spent two years travelling across America, capturing undergraduates studying art at 25 universities. The result is his latest book, Advice for Young Artists.

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