Chris Collins reviews Mark Lyta’s photography book (derived from his Soft White Underbelly project), walking viewers through contrasting paired portraits that juxtapose Americans from diverse walks of life (nuns vs. prostitutes, marine vs. veteran, fur trapper vs. fur consumer, etc.). Collins emphasizes how the book exposes instant, surface-level identity judgments and invites viewers to see the human behind the role; the work functions as a momentary ‘‘snapshot’’ of life that challenges perceptions of identity.
Chapters
Lets take a walk through America. You know what we're going to see? We're going to see doctors, we're going to see lawyers, firefighters, policemen, mothers, schoolteachers, rich people, poor people, coal miners, bikers, criminals. But do you know the one thing we're not going to see?
Hold on to that thought for a minute.
So imagine right now the way you are sitting there. I know nothing about you. I don't know your bio. I take a picture.
Who am I going to see? And that's what Mark Lyta is showing us with this book. So few books out there have changed my perception in the way I see identity and how it works.
Let me show you something.
Take a look at this picture.
What comes to mind?
What do you think it means?
How about now.
Most of us know Mark Lyta from Soft White Underbelly, which is his YouTube channel, which he recently made into a book. And we have it here in the library. And so his first book that I fell for is Created Equal. It's one of my all time favorites. I mean it's so beautiful. What Mark does with created equ is he's really taking a snapshot of somebody's entire life in that moment. Look at this. This is, oh, this is so great. So on the left you have nuns and on the right prostitutes.
This one a pimp and a polygamist.
Police, convict, bodybuilder, drag queen. And you can just stare at these pictures all day. Veins. So incredible how you see somebody's identity just like stop. This one is intense. So you have a marine and then you have a veteran. The veteran lost his legs in war. And this contrast of the optimistic young marine that has his life in front of him and then the veteran who's gone to war and paid a pretty high price, that contrast is just super interesting. I love this one. So you got the fur trapper and then you have the consumer of the furs with her little dog.
I don't want to be judgmental, but the word that comes to mind is cold. Often the thing about judgment is it doesn't even need a word. It's a feeling and it's instant and precise.
Welter Boys, Motorcycle Gang. So you got a dominatrix on this side and then you have a mom rock band, glam rock band and then a polka band, Baptist minister on this side, KKK on this side. So this one is titled Crack and then Escort. The eyes tell you everything.
What I think is interesting about this one is this is actually Mark's daughter here on the Left.
Pacific Palisades, Chicago.
So when you put this little girl next to the Go Go dancer, it changes the way you see the Go Go dancer, but also it changes the way you see the little girl, because the Go Go dancer was once a little girl. And then it makes you wonder what's going to happen to the little girl and the things that could happen that could make her turn into the Go Go dancer. And if you just saw the Go Go dancer by herself, you would probably forget that she once was a little girl, innocent, with her whole life in front.
Of.
If I asked you to describe yourself in one word, what would the word be?
Now, if you struggle to answer that question, congratulations, because 80% of people can't describe themselves in one word. But when we walk around, we immediately apply an identity to everybody we see. And that contrast to me is interesting in this book because mostly what you see is identity staring right back at you.
Let's look at America again and what we see, because we saw the pastor, the mother, the dominatrix, the little girl, the Go Go dancer, the cop, the criminal. But what didn't we see? And I think what Mark Lyta is trying to get us to understand, it's about seeing the person, not the identity.
We all start at a certain place. We're all born, and then we develop and we evolve. Our environment, the people around us and the decisions that we make end up creating who we are. And this book is a snapshot of people's lives in a time, in a moment. He just has this ability of making people.
