Dog Days Bogotá is a book that adapts well to the line of Alec Soth's documentary work, where whoever observes the book, walks through a place feeling the environment, understanding the tensions and contradictions of the street and meeting at times with unique characters who pose for the author with a surprising dignity and strength. Surely the impact generated by the portraits has much to do with the relationship that the author establishes with them when taking the photographs. Alec Soth always seeks to know something of the life, dreams and personality of those he is photographing and that is reflected in each photo.
The book has a great importance in the author's journey because it is related to the adoption of his daughter. This is how Alec Soth narrates this episode: "My wife and I adopted our baby girl, Carmen Laura, from Bogotá, Colombia. While the courts were processing her paperwork, we spent two months in Bogota waiting to take Carmen home. Carmen's birth mother gave her a book full of letters, photographs and poems. "I hope the harshness of the world does not hurt your sensibility," she wrote, "when I think of you I hope your life is full of beautiful things. With those words as a mission statement, I began making my own book for Carmen. By photographing the city where she was born, I hope I have depicted some of the beauty of this difficult place."
