Magnum Poster: Charles, Vasa, Minnesota, 2002

Alec Soth’s work is rooted in the American photographic tradition that Walker Evans famously termed “documentary style.” Concerned with the mythologies and oddities that proliferate America’s disconnected communities, Soth has an instinct for the relationship between narrative and metaphor. His clarity of voice has drawn many comparisons to literature, but he believes photography to be more fragmented; “It’s more like poetry than writing a novel.”