Today's so-called "sharing economy" can be brutal on professional photographers. Exposure for no pay, and Instagram's democratizing of photography for the masses has made your uncle's family backyard BBQ cliché comments like "but what do you do for a living?" more real than ever before. Photographer Timothy Briner, known for his series Boonville and Sandy, is getting fed up. Over the past decade he's occasionally shot jobs pro-bono, with an eye for invaluable exposure, but recently, this work-for free mindset, recently pushed him one click of the shutter too far...

PostedApril 1, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists

TagsExposure, spec work, photographers' rights, legal advice for photographers

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While trolling Ryan McGinley's Instagram a couple weeks ago, we noticed a photo of him with Cindy Sherman at a Gucci event. Yes, we went a little #newyorksocialdiaries on this, but more importantly, we were surprised, as he linked to it, that Ms. Sherman's complete works, which now have their own Instagram handle, at the time, only had 248 followers. (Editor's note: within about an hour of this post going live, "Cindy Sherman Complete" followers exceeded 300.) So, despite whatever's going on with Instagram's algorithm change and whether you'll actually be able see her updates, it's a nice, growing overview of some of her most recognized works. And while you're at it, consider following these 12 photographers who have been taking over Humble Arts Foundation's Instagram over the past few months, with spontaneous visual diaries, or, like Sherman, as a vehicle for showing longer term projects. One (Eleanor MacNair) even has a nod to Sherman's famous Film Stills in Play Dough.

PostedMarch 28, 2016

AuthorEditors

CategoriesArtists, Galleries

TagsCindy Sherman, Ryan McGinley, instagram, Tom Beresfo, Derek Shapton, Philip Rodriguez, Lindsay Metivier, Peter Baker, Paula McCartney, John Goldsmith, Alison Postma, Chase Barnes, Eleanor Macnair, Birthe Piontek

Photographic buzzwords are still some of the most heavily used, yet meaningless forms of journalism today. Possibly the "millennial" answer to The New York Post's historically obnoxious front page headlines, these "delicious" words continue to get our clicks, regardless of how hollow they might actually be. They make stories more "digestible" with language designed to entice even your feline friends. For many photo editors, this tendency towards linguistic carelessness also finds its way into image requests, and for the self-proclaimed intelligentsia, using art-speak can often seem a bit more "complex" than it actually is. Since we at Humble are guilty of all of the above, for the second time, we invited some of our favorite art and photography curators, writers, editors, and producers to share some of their most beloved/hated photographic buzzword pet peeves, which we illustrated using some of our favorite stock photos and illustrations of cats. Enjoy, and "please share this magical work" widely. Wanna see our 2015 list first? Click Here

PostedMarch 24, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPublications

TagsCharlotte Cotton, Liz Lapp, Elizabeth Renstrom, Ellyn Kail, Bryan Formhals, Stephanie Heimann, Jenna Garrett, Jordan Teicher, Jacqueline Bates, Toby Kaufmann, Paddy Johnson, Kate Osba

Ka-Man Tse and Aaron Blum offer unique views into communities that are historically stereotyped or underrepresented by popular media, and show how those groups balance their traditions with the modern world. In their respective projects, which I recently selected for Silver Eye Center for Photography's annual Fellowship grant and exhibition in Pittsburgh, PA, Blum and Tse break from a straightforward, documentary format. They photograph their subjects with a rich narrative creating a deepened, yet open ended understanding from within, rather than a purely descriptive documentary processes. Tse's series Narrow Distances, includes portraits and chaotic landscapes that offer a queer lens into LGBTQ culture and identity in contemporary Hong Kong, while Blum's A Field Guide to Folk Taxonomy, combines landscapes and quiet ephemera to portray unexpected intergenerational symbols and mythologies from Appalachia. Each shoots with a large format view camera, which helps them meditate on their communities, through a slow, layered, and poetic voice.

PostedMarch 17, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists, Portfolio

TagsKa-Man Tse, Aaron Blum, Hong Kong Photography, LGBT, Appalachia, Silver Eye Center For Photography, Large Format Photography, New Photographic Portraiture

Curling - Delivering. Photographer: Paul Thompson

What do a cat shopping for Christmas presents, a snow buried car and some shivering NYC pigeons have in common? Not much aside from their obvious "winter" theme, but they are all part of the fascinating digital archive put online earlier this year by the New York Public Library. While curating our latest group show, Winter Pictures over the past few weeks, one favorite distraction was rabbit-holing it down this maze of historical photographic tangents, so we thought it would be fitting to cull a collection of our favorite cold, discordant gems - a series "b-sides" to the exhibition. Enjoy.

PostedFebruary 25, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesGalleries

TagsArchival photography, winter pictures, winter photography, vernacular photography, new york public library digital collection, NYPL Digital Archive

Photographer Tired of Working for "Exposure" Boycotts Family Photos

Cindy Sherman's Complete Works Have Less Than 300 Instagram Followers?

12 Click-tacular Buzzwords Photography Writers Need To Stop Using (part 2)

Two Photographers Confront Tradition and Representation in Hong Kong and Appalachia

Down The Rabbit Hole: Old Winter Photographs from the NYPL Digital Archive