Description

Born in 1969, Soth was raised in rural Minnesota and studied at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College. Between 1999 and 2002, he made a series of road trips along the Mississippi River, south from his home state through the Midwest, down to the Gulf of Mexico. The photographs he took on these journeys became his breakthrough piece of work, Sleeping By the Mississippi, an unflinching portrait of modern America.

This photograph, “Cry Baby”, was taken in 2005, as part of the book project Niagara which saw Soth making images either side of the famed falls, in Canada and the USA. A long established popular location for honeymoons and romantic getaways, Niagara explored the somewhat less cheery reality of the region. “Niagara is part of American mythology. It’s a place of romance, where people go to get married,” explains Soth. “But when I got there my view of the place totally changed. The American side is economically devastated. It’s bleak.”

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