Soth and Relle

When I first started scrolling through Alec Soth's Broken Manual, I was slightly confused as to how the images related. But after about the 7 or 8 image I started to understand that work was conceptually based and that the images were linked by what they represented. I interpreted the images as a documentation of a broken down, dilapidated town that Soth found a great interest in. Aesthetically the images very from black and white to color and the sizes of the images very as well. Very different Frank Relle's collection Nightscapes. His work is all aesthetically similar. Same erie ghost like affect, all taken at night probably with long exposures. Each image is composed and set up the same way with the same subject matter. Does that take away from it conceptually? I don't think so but I think it takes the viewer longer to develop a theory, first they get past all the obvious things about the images then they move on to something deeper. As opposed to the Broken Manual collection where aesthetics aren't apparent you are forced to group the images conceptually first.

In my opinion both of the tactics work towards the artist purpose and in that aspect they can both be successful. Chose which method best suits your purpose. However I think that with more aesthetically pleasing images some times the viewer might not think deeper about why they are presented in that manner or what more they could represent, the concept is forgotten.