Magnum Photos - Alec Soth - Photographic Storytelling

Alec Soth teaches photographic storytelling

Alec Soth leads the second online course by Magnum Photos, demonstrating the different techniques and approaches he uses in his photographic storytelling. In his first ever online course, you will follow the world-renowned visual storyteller as he navigates a range of different photographic scenarios, initiated after a random act - a dart thrown at a map.

Through an engaging curriculum of 19 in-depth video lessons you will learn about a variety of topics, from building a project to creating a photobook.

19 Lessons
Covering Soth's early career, portraiture, editing and sequencing, photobooks and much more.

5+ Hours
In-depth lessons and case studies totaling more than five hours of high-quality video content.

What you'll learn

Overcoming creative challenges
Learn from Alec Soth's experience juggling jobs, finding time to create work, and the ten years of development prior to his breakthrough project.

Building photographic projects
From ideas and research to shooting, creative momentum and finding meaning, Alec Soth breaks down his process of creating a body of work.

Photographing people
Discover the energy that people can bring to your work, the challenges of portraiture and the reasons to push yourself to overcome the fear of photographing strangers.

Creating a photobook
Understand the process of creating photobooks, from editing and sequencing, maquettes and book dummies, to the final publication

See Alec Soth at work
See the Magnum photographer shooting work on location using a variety of photographic approaches and equipment.

Unlock the editing process
Learn about the power of editing in photography, and how to create meaning through sequencing.



Alec Soth (b. 1969) is a photographer born and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work is rooted in the distinctly American tradition of ‘on-the-road photography’ developed by photographers like Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. 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.”

Renowned for his photographs of people and his lyrical approach to photography, he has published over twenty-five books including Sleeping by the Mississippi, NIAGARA, Broken Manual, Songbook and most recently I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating

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