A Harvest of Death. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania July 1863 © Timothy O’ Sullivan (public domain) — *A Harvest of Death. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania July 1863* © Timothy O’ Sullivan (public domain)

Humble announces two (radically unrelated) summer open calls: one book and our next online group show.

1) On Death: the book. In partnership with Kris Graves Projects

Following last year's online group show On Death and our latest online group show Loss, Kris Graves invited Humble to team up for a sequel: On Death, the book – set to publish later this year.

What’s it about?
Death has a rich place in the photo history. For critics and philosophers including the late Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, the medium itself was “a kind of death," or as Sontag put it in On Photography, a "memento-mori that enables participation in another's mortality, vulnerability, mutability." Sure, Sontag and Barthes' wisdom is decades old, but we continue to see it transcending time and shifting attitudes towards the medium.

The book will present contemporary photographic takes on the end of life, not only as it passes, but in the sometimes abstract metaphors entangled in the practice – how time and life arrest within a frame. Submissions are open to anyone, including those who were featured in either prior exhibition.

PostedMay 16, 2019

AuthorEditors

CategoriesOpen Call, Publications, Exhibitions

Tagsopen call, photobook opportunity, don't call it a contest, Kris Graves Projects, Roula Seikaly, Jon Feinstein, photo opportunities

A new book uses strange, sometimes mystical imagery to retell a fragmented family memoir.

"Magical," “Narrative" and "Storytelling" are three words photographers and tech brands often overuse to describe work and products that often don't actually imbue any of those characteristics. Sure, humans love to tell stories – we're drawn to them like cave sketches, right? They bring us together and make for a sticky TED Talk intro. But do they actually tug at us with just enough "mystery" to keep us guessing? With Paul Thulin's new book, Pine Tree Ballads, published by Candela Books, the answer, said in both a shout and a whisper, fist wrapped around the heart, is absolutely fucking yes.

Pine Tree Ballads takes us on a wonderfully confusing journey through the reenacted fantasies of Thulin's family history set in a small community in Maine. His great grandfather settled there in the early twentieth century, drawn to its resemblance to his Swedish homeland. Thulin reenacts these stories using a dreamlike sequence of images. Some feel staged, some feel like found family relics, and others rest somewhere in between.

As viewers, we're able to weave in and out of Thullin's consciousness with a dreamlike fluidity. Subtle photos of notes written in cursive text and an unexpected balance of black and white, color, and alternate-processed images help to pace, break up, and chapter-mark nearly 100 images that somehow, despite their volume, feel like an immaculately tight edit. Oh, and the inside front and back covers are peppered with glitter.

I emailed with Thulin to learn more about his journey.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Paul Thulin

PostedMay 10, 2019

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Publications, Portfolio, Photobooks

TagsPaul Thulin, Candela Books, Pine Tree Ballads, New Photography, 2019 Photobooks, Photobooks

A new photography book combines religious kitsch, southern mythology, and eerie occult horror.

A crucifix made from Kraft cheese slices sitting on a dirt road. Poltergeist-y mist coming seeping through a sunlit door. Two bedsheet ghosts driving a car. These are just a few of the funny and strange photos included in Maury Gortemiller’s new book Do The Priest in Different Voices, a collection of images inspired by the photographers’ bible-heavy childhood memories. Growing up, religious illustrations helped him conjure the unseen and make the Bible’s written words – which felt abstract and inaccessible – feel tangible, palatable and worth contemplation. His work is a peculiar, contemporary take on these narratives, often infused with mythology from the American South where he grew up and currently lives and works.

We spoke to discuss everything from the project’s origins to Gortemiller's relationship with religion and his love for horror movies.

Maury Gortemiller in conversation with Jon Feinstein

PostedApril 18, 2019

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Publications, Portfolio, Photobooks

TagsMaury Gortemiller, Southern Photographers, Occult Photography, AIn't Bad, Photobooks, Photography Books

A new photographic series travels the American landscape with an unexpected gaze.

Amy Parrish’s Place I Slept is an ongoing series of photographs made while driving across the North American landscape. It’s a project countless photographers have made for more than a century, often as some kind of “rite of passage,” often by bro-tographers like Ansel Adams set to profess their freedom by claim the land with their cameras. Parrish’s work is different. It’s quieter, lonesome, and solitary. Places I Slept, is, as the title clearly suggests, a personal portrait of America as illustrated thru a constellation of beds, cars, and twilighted landscapes. Having moved back and forth from India some years ago, Parrish walks the line between native explorer and tourist, struggling with where she fits, the cultures she’s adapted to, and whether she feels like she can call this now unfamiliar terrain home. I spoke with Parrish to learn more.

Amy Parrish in conversation with Jon Feinstein

PostedApril 11, 2019

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio, Publications

TagsAmy Parrish, Road Trip Photography, Places I Slept

A new stock photography website champions white masculinity.

April 1st, 2019 9:45am, EST

Responding to last week’s launch of Zackary Drucker’s trans-positive stock photo library and an increased presence of women and diverse cultures in stock photography agencies like Getty Images and Shutterstock, Fox News fraternity brother Tucker Carlson has launched Cis-Stock, a new stock photography collection comprised entirely of photos of heterosexual caucasian men. The agency promises to deliver a counter balance to Drucker’s initiative, Getty’s 2013 Lean In collection, and what Carlson describes as a “libtard-cuck, Benetton-ization visual narrative.”

PostedApril 1, 2019

AuthorEditors

CategoriesArtists, Publications

TagsTucker Carlson, Stock Photography, Shutterstock, April Fools

Two Open Calls: On Death (the book!) and Group Show #62: 100% Fun

1) On Death: the book. In partnership with Kris Graves Projects

Paul Thulin Retells His Family's Folklore with Photographic Magic

Maury Gortemiller Conjures the Unseen With Terror and Cheese

Sleeping Through America: Amy Parrish's Quiet Take on the American Road Trip

FoxNews' Tucker Carlson Fights Stock Photography "Diversity Fascism" – Launches 'Cis-Stock,' a Photo Agency Exclusively for White Men