On Monday, March 23, San Francisco Art Institute announced that it will close its doors, possibly for good.

The institution home to the nation’s first fine art photography program, founded by Ansel Adams in 1945 and led by a luminary faculty cohort including Dorothea Lange, Imogene Cunningham, Minor White, Lisette Model, and Edward Weston.

If SFAI remains shuttered, it will be a loss to art communities both locally and across the globe. Humble’s senior editor Roula Seikaly asked SFAI alumni and instructors to share their thoughts on the time they spent on the North Beach campus, and why the school and the people they encountered there were important to their personal and creative growth.

PostedApril 6, 2020

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArtists, Galleries

TagsSF Art Institute, San Francisco Art Institute, Lonnie Graham, Rafael Soldi, Eirik Johnson, Meghann Riepenhoff, Marcela Pardo Ariza, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Janet Delaney

Rafael Soldi’s new monograph, Imagined Futures, published by Candor Arts, uses the photobooth as a sacred space for healing amidst cultural and political turmoil.

Seattle based photographer, curator, and activist Rafael Soldi’s latest series and limited edition photobook lowers the volume on the heated dialogues in which nationality, gender, sexual orientation and their role in identity continue to inflame and divide.

Using quiet self-portraits made in traditional photo booths around the world, Soldi invites us to witness his reckoning with adolescent traumas shaped by socio-religious discrimination and ill-fitting masculine tropes. With closed eyes, he mutes extraneous noise to hear his inner monologue and find empowerment and solace within himself.

I chatted with Soldi about photo booths as interlocutors in the self-portrait process and healing wounds through ritual and performance.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with Rafael Soldi

PostedDecember 11, 2019

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArtists, Photobooks, Portfolio

Tagsphotobooth, photobooks, Rafael Soldi, Candor Arts, Roula Seikaly, self portraiture

Humble editors select standouts in 2018 (online) photography writing

In his essay in Blindspot’s 2006 issue #32, Tim Davis wrote “people never read book introductions…,” a statement that, written more than a decade ago, unfortunately, continues to resound more than ever before and can be aptly applied to today’s “content” hungry landscape. We scroll rapidly through Instagram and eat listicles (like this one!) like Cheetos. Onto the next, onto the next, onto the next like an accelerated tangent of highway billboards in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. And defensiveness among countless photographers to write about their work seems ever present – just search “artist statement” into any Facebook photo group (yes we know, FB is for “old people” - go watch some YouTube "influencers," kids..) and you’ll hydrate yourself on the haterade for weeks. BUT! BUT! BUT!

But the “don’t make me think” attitude towards writing is counterbalanced by a ton of thoughtful essays, interviews and long form think-pieces on the current state of photography, its evolution and key issues that tie it to the larger cultural landscape. Below are 22 pieces on photography that moved us, in no particular order. You’ll notice that many of the pieces we selected are heavy on discussion of “the gaze,” which seems to have garnered a renewed attention in criticism and popular discussion over the past few years, and likely has been on our minds gearing up for the BlueSky Curatorial Prize this May.

Grab a couple coffees, mute Instagram for a bit, and have a read.

Seven years ago, while living in New York City, Seattle-based photographer Rafael Soldi’s partner left him suddenly, without explanation. There were no premonitions or warning signs, and the disappearance nearly destroyed him. To help understand his pain, over the next few years, he made a series of photographs called Sentiment, which combined natural-lit portraits, still lifes and fragments of letters as a chronicle of his loss. These pictures, shot largely on film with warm, natural light show Soldi coming to terms with his individuality and sexual identity. As time passed and he gained some distance from from this emotional trauma, Soldi embarked on his most recent, ongoing body of work, Life Stand Still Here, which he’s been making for the past three years. This new series, which opens as a solo exhibition on June 2 at Seattle’s Glassbox Gallery, offers a darker, more conceptual manifestation and exploration of himself, his fears, and moments when life and its darkest facets can offer monumental symbolism.

PostedMay 26, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Exhibitions

TagsRafael Soldi, Glassbox Gallery Seattle, Photographing Loss, Seattle Photographers, New Photography

Photo Courtesy of the Collection of Robert E. Jackson

The act of photographing someone from behind is often likened to voyeurism or timidity. Think Lee Friedlander's classic image of his shadow stuck to a fur-clad woman's back. Or the countless, anonymous, about-faced vernacular snapshots that shroud women in a creepy silhouette of men pursuing them with cameras. As a young teenager, one of my first photo teachers told me to avoid making this kind of portrait at all costs - their recommendation (or commandment!) was meant as an encouragement – to get to know people, explore something deeper, make a connection or challenge me to engage on a deeper level. But what can this sometimes frowned-upon approach disclose in gesture or body language? Can it tell us more than direct eye contact might pretend? Pace McGill curated a rather compelling exhibition of these kinds of portraits throughout photographic history last summer in NYC. Building on some of these historical notions, we contacted some of our favorite contemporary emerging and mid-career photographers to hear their about their own back-portraits, and their thoughts on this reversal of reveal.

Artists Reflect on the Sudden Closing of San Francisco Art Institute

Rafael Soldi Transforms a Photobooth into a Sanctuary

Reading's Not Dead: 22 Essays, Interviews and Other Sharp (Online) Photography Writing You Should Have Read in 2018

Photographing Loss with an Abstract Lens

What Does it Mean To Photograph Someone from Behind?