These photographs were really interesting and it was cool to see the differences in style and meaning when looking in one room from Louis Faurer and going to the next and seeing the work of Alec Soth. One of Louis Faurer’s photos that I thought was particularly interesting was the image of a man and presumably his son standing in Times Square looking off in different directions. I thought the idea of light in this photograph was compelling because as the viewer, you can almost not even tell if it’s night or day. The lights of Times Square are so extremely bright compared to what natural daylight would look like, and it’s probably night time in the photo creating a strange effect of not knowing what time of day it really is. I felt this way about another of Faurer’s photos, the woman holding an umbrella as she walks through a crowd of people. It looks as though light is shining on every individual in the shot. Not being able to tell what time the photo was taken becomes an interesting story for the viewer. The point of view is distorted, and we’re forced to pay attention to how much light can affect what we’re looking at and how we observe it.

Soth also had really beautiful photographs. I think the photo that probably stood out to most people was the enormous shot of the man walking in a field. There is so much contrast and it’s so big your eyes are immediately drawn to it. As the viewer, you can tell that a large bright light is probably shining on the man and it’s shot at night since the background/sky is so dark, almost unnaturally dark. The man almost looks like someone living in their natural habitat and some person comes along with a bright light to take a photograph. It creates this narrative of the farmer in rural Minnesota just walking through his crops and/or showing the photographer perhaps around.

Both photographers had very interesting and pleasing work to look at. I liked how Soth’s work had this cinematic vibe to it, I felt like I was looking at film stills, and every image was so clear crisp. Faurer’s photos were also so cool to look at because we got to see over-rated tourist spot back in the 1940s and 50s, and it almost looks like hardly anythings changed.