NASA recently released new high-resolution photographs of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, unveiling images its spacecraft New Horizons had uncovered at the solar system's far out regions. As we get closer to understanding worlds beyond, outer space continues to be an abstract mystery, ripe with metaphor and science fiction...and naturally, photographic interpretation. With this move into new frontiers, for Humble Arts Foundation's next online exhibition, we want to see your vision of outer space. Abstraction, appropriation, strange narratives, and if you somehow broke through the atmosphere and "documented" your travels, we'd love to see those too.

Deadline: November 15th, 2015

PostedOctober 7, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesExhibitions, Open Call

TagsOpen Call, Space Photography, NASA Photography, Space Jams, Call for submissions

Frederick Douglass Hair. Nebraska State Historical Society. Lincoln, NE 2012. ©Wendel White

In the fall of 2008, while photographer and Rochester Institute of Technology visiting faculty member Wendel White was researching images associated with historical sites, he came across an object that would profoundly change his work to come. White discovered a preserved lock of Frederick Douglass’ hair in the Rush Rhees Special collections Library at the University of Rochester, driving him to begin Manifest, a comprehensive ongoing body of work documenting the relics of the United States’ brutal history towards Blacks in America.

PostedOctober 2, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists

TagsWendel White, Still Life Photography, Large Format Photography, African American History, Black History

Since Ryan McGinley and Tim Barber shaped VICE Magazine's photographic vision in the early 2000's, the magazine has had a consistent reputation for showing exciting new photography. Its relentlessly defiant content, ranging from controversial editorial stories to the often coveted annual Photo Issue, has carved out a recognizable, heavily copied aesthetic, trickling into mainstream fashion, lifestyle and advertising campaigns. Aside from their proclaimed hard-edged journalism, it's likely that this vision helped make VICE the media giant it is today. In 2013, before things could get stale, Matthew Lefheit took the reins for a brief but impactful stint. Under his tenure, Leifheit opened VICE's scope to photographers like Michael Bühler Rose, Erin O' Keefe, Lucas Blalock, and Rachel Stern, who are as equally engaged with photography's academic history as they are in keeping it current.

As Leifheit recently headed to Yale to pursue his MFA, Elizabeth Renstrom has taken over, promising to keep VICE's photographic spirit courageous. Renstrom, a former Parsons' student of George Pitts is an accomplished photographer and photo producer, and regularly shoots for clients like Refinery 29, TIME, Nylon, and Bloomberg Business Week while still somehow managing to find the time to make her own work, including a hilariously poignant ongoing series about her early adolescence in the 1990's. Just as her first issue came out of production, we caught up with Renstrom to hear more about her plans for VICE, her own work, and what's changing in photography today.

PostedSeptember 16, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Publications

TagsVICE Magazine, Interviews, Elizabeth Renstrom, Matthew Leifheit, New Photography, Tim Barber, Ryan McGinley, Vice Photo, VICE

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.

PostedSeptember 8, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists

TagsSadie Wechsler, New Landscape Photography, Ansel Adams, Yale Photographers, Seattle Photographers, Manifest Destiny, Humble Arts Foundation, Jon Feinstein, Seattle Art Museum Betty Bowen Award Finalists

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.

PostedAugust 26, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsBlack Barbershops, animated gifs, GIFs, black and white, documentary photography, Brandon Tauszik, Oakland

Open Call: Group Show #47: Space Jamz

Wendel White's Still Life Artifacts From Slavery, Segregation and Emancipation

Keeping Photography Weird: 10 Questions with VICE's New Photo Editor Elizabeth Renstrom

Sadie Wechsler's Photographs Rethink the 'Breathtaking' Landscape

Picturing Oakland's Historically Black Barbershops Using Animated GIFs