© Sadie Weschler
In the summer of 2013, after completing her MFA in photography from Yale, Sadie Wechsler rode her bike around Iceland, eventually making her way to back to Seattle, Washington where she’d grown up. During this time, which she spent almost entirely alone in various states of wilderness, Wechsler began making Baby This One’s For You, a series of pictures that reflect a perspective of the natural landscape driven as much by wonder and nostalgia as they are by sadness and fatalism.
© Brandon Tauszik
For the past 4 years, Brandon Tauszik has been making portraits of historically Black barber shops in Oakland California, using GIFs made from looped video footage. Resting somewhere between narrative and documentary, Tauszik's series "Tapered Throne" paints a quiet snapshot of businesses that have served as pivotal community hubs for over a century, and continue to thrive in spite of rapid urban gentrification. Despite being white, and on some level an outsider, Tauszik's thoughtful approach has earned the trust of the men he photographs, and presents an intimate view of barbershop culture that, as historian Quincy T. Mills writes, "are constantly in motion and in tune with the comings and goings of the people in their city." We spent some time with Tauszik to learn more about his creative process and motivations.
Alexander Binder is a wizard creator of imaginary worlds. Growing up in Germany’s Black Forest in the 1980’s, his pre-internet (and pre-Kanye West) childhood and limited athletic abilities sparked a love for old fairytales, comic books and fantasy literature, as well as science fiction and horror movies. Over the years, these obsessions accumulated into a mental archive of psychedelic stories and imagery, which have had a major influence on his photographic practice for more than a decade. Binder’s upcoming book with Tangerine Press, Kristall ohne Liebe, meaning "The Crystal without Love,” uses various mystical symbols to draw an ongoing tension between competing forces of darkness and light. From a distance, this might sound like the perfect recipe for a late 1990’s mall-goth picture book, but it’s executed with a sensitivity that is smart, thoughtful and aesthetically riveting. And it's even stranger when viewed while listening to Black Sabbath’s N.I.B.
Time Magazine associate photo editor Myles Little has organized an internationally touring exhibition 1%: Privilege in a Time of Inequality, that attempts to raise awareness of the growing disparity of wealth around the world. Using Edward Steichen's 1955 exhibition and book The Family of Man as a launch point, Little aims to use the work of some of today's most acclaimed photographers to create a contemporary conversation about inequality. Little positions his exhibition in contrast to Steichen's, which presented an optimism towards the human spirit. For Little, the vast disproportion of today's wealth has harmed humanity with grave consequence. While these words and the exhibition title might suggest a collection of weighted, potentially propagandistic images, Little's selection contains a thoughtful mix of work that is as soft-spoken as it is hard-hitting, which will hopefully help it to speak to a broad and diverse audience. We spoke with Myles to learn more about the exhibition, and the book he'll publish with Hatje Cantz if successfully funded through a Kickstarter campaign.
There is a tendency among naysayers to refute Instagram's legitimacy, condemning it as nothing but a visualized Twitter. These wizards say it's not much more than a tool for self-promotion, navel gazing, or disguised brand building. That, despite Vik Muniz and Alex Praeger's Instagram prints garnering thousands of dollars in Aperture's 2013 benefit auction, there's no value in its incredibly low resolution. Despite this ongoing discourse, Instagram continues to be an impactful source of photographic discovery and influence, for some it's become its own distinct lens, and for others, it's become a sketchpad for larger ideas. For the past year, Humble has invited some of our favorite photographers to participate in weekly Instagram residencies - each with a unique bend. To celebrate this pseudo-anniversary, here are 52 of our favorite images from participating photographers in all their low-res glory. We encourage you to explore their feeds, and follow their ever-evolving work.
