Leatherette cover

Water is one of life's necessities. Throughout history civilisation has sprouted on the banks of the world's great rivers. In his debut monograph Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004) Alec Soth turned his lens toward the great waterway that pours through the heart of America, the river that seeded the cities of the American south. Travelling its length he watched the river giving and taking life. Swamped with accolades, the book deservedly earned Soth critical and commercial acclaim. In its wake comes the follow up Niagara (2006), with Soth visiting America's other great watery icon.

Darker, introspective, lonely, romantic; Niagara is a tighter and more mature publication. Niagara Falls, the popular honeymoon destination, is a symbol of hope and expectation, passion and desire. Soth's portraits of the people and places surrounding the falls display a delicate intimacy. They impel us to turn inward and reflect upon ourselves as much as consider the images before us. Niagara is an outstanding photobook: the sequencing unfolds with a rhythm that amplifies its impact, personal design touches abound, and careful nods to other famous works ensure it will be a treasured volume on many a bookshelf.

Tricia and Curtis

The premise of Niagara is deceptively simple. Niagara, as one of the most popular travel destinations of the Americas, enjoys the status of being a unique natural wonder. Beautiful in its destructive power, it is also one of the most popular honeymoon destinations. Alec Soth feels the pull of Niagara as a metaphor for love itself. Waterfalls scream romance, and what could be more romantic than the greatest waterfall of them all? And so the lone photographer ventures into the city of newlyweds with his 8x10 view camera and ponders the nature of romance.

Melissa

Hotel fronts, bereft of people. Portraits of couples, unglamorous, even desperate at first glance. Over time the sense of touch in each portrait allows a tender grace to shine through. A bride, alone, arms folded, sitting outside a bare bricked hotel room. Later, a wedding dress hangs limply from a ceiling. We learn of "Joy's Divorce Party". We see a glass half full (or is it half empty?) of liquor. Perhaps it is the photographer's. Perhaps it isn't.

Interspersed through the book are familiar and hackneyed images of the Falls; a chorus that separates the verses much like Robert Frank did with flags in 'The Americans'. These landscapes become surprisingly melancholic in such a context. Soth toys with these postcard views by cleverly overpowering them; surrounding them with the on-the-ground reality. A painterly image of the Bridal Veil Falls is followed by the white misty dress of a seated bride. Another shot shows the falls bathed in a reddish pink light. A photograph overleaf provides the natural counterpoint- a red chalk heart shape is stenciled on the ground, fading. It has been splattered by some gloomy black substance from above. Indeed, the heart-shape itself is a motif hinted at through out the book. A pink flowered tree shaped like a heart in the parking lot of the Best Western. A boxer and his girlfriend with their torso locked in a heart shaped embrace. A couple lay on an animal print sofa, her hand spread over his heart.

Heart

The book takes the form of an album with a tipped in photo of 'towel swans' on the leatherette cover. Just as it did with William Eggleston's Guide, this illusion of a real album lends an air of familiarity. If there is a contemporary photographer that Soth resembles it is Joel Sternfeld. And so it remarkable that the structure of the book is so similar to Sternfeld's 'Stranger Passing'. The bulk of images are sandwiched between essays, and again by single photographs that open and close the narrative. Sternfield criss-crossed the great mass of America with his 8x10 view camera to have the nation sit for its portrait. Soth is the stranger entering a single isolated location, but he achieves much the same feat.

Rebecca

The Seneca

A quote from the author Vladimir Nabokov appears toward the end of the book: 'Beauty plus pity - that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies'. This cycle of beauty and empathy lies at the base of photography as much as any other art, and is fully demonstrated throughout Niagara. It is a doubly fascinating quote as Nabokov was perhaps the most famous synasthesic writer who conveys his emotions by sprinkling his novels with hundreds of uniquely described colours. Here in Soth's photobook his often bland backgrounds are punctuated with various blues, yellows, and reds that tell the emotional story of Niagara.

Would you come home?

It would be all too easy to accept a literal interpretation of Niagara as a tale of the decline of romance. Niagara draws the honeymooners toward it with promises of romance, beauty, and grandeur. Then follows the banality of stark hotels, barren suburbia, downcast faces, stained letters. But flowing through all this is a current of strength. One begins to see wisdom, not suspicion, in the eyes of the portrait sitters, and comfort rather than alienation in the nocturnal shots. Much of the appeal of Niagara is that the photographer never judges or bludgeons a message into his viewers. Rather there is a gentle balance of beauty, poignancy, passion, sadness, and desire that will allow every viewer to construct their own interpretation. Niagara's tight edit of 36 photographs allows us to see more, feel more. Spend some time with this book and it will reward you.

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