Around this time each year, it's become a tradition for Humble and dozens of other photoblogs and online magazines to list their favorite photobooks, and it's often a bit arbitrary. After what John Oliver recently deemed to be a particularly heartbreaking year for many - from the deaths of some of our beloved celebrities, to the tragedy in Orlando, the murders of unarmed black men, the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, and the bubbling face of reactionary politics worldwide (the list goes on!), we decided to use this space to highlight photography titles with a particular focus on social concerns and civil rights. These books cover territory ranging from race, cultural, and gender representation to global warming, and include a particular title that we think should have been published over a decade ago (we'll let you figure it out). We encourage you to support these photographers and publishers as you begin making the holiday purchasing rounds. We recognize these lists are subject to our own narrow gaze, so if you think we missed a particularly engrossing book, please drop us a line at submit AT hafny DOT org. View our previous lists HERE and HERE.
© Shane Lavalette
Since 1996 The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia has invited photographers like Sally Mann, Alec Soth, Emmett Gowin and Richard Misrach to participate in their ongoing documentary series Picturing the South. The initiative prompts photographers to break from the regions potential visual clichés, in favor of a more open-ended approach. In his new book, One Sun, One Shadow, 2012 invitee Shane Lavalette focuses on the rich history of Southern music with an eye that strays from traditional documentary tropes.
There are no photographs of guitar players’ aging hands, nor are there caricatured images of Deliverance-style banjo players plucking away on back porches. Less than five of the photographs in the book include instruments or literal signifiers of music. Instead, the series reflects the ambiance of music and its rich sensation through landscape, portraits, still life. “I knew immediately I didn’t want to set out to illustrate significant places and people that are part of the musical history of the South, or directly trace any specific lineage,” says Lavalette. “I wanted to explore the subjects on the fringes of these places and focus on the atmosphere.”
Ada Nieves Chihuahua Nation. New York, NY. 2016. © Amy Lombard
A few years ago, Amy Lombard photographed a pug Meetup in Staten Island, NY. She left the event curious about how the Internet had united a diverse group of people, based purely around their shared interest in pugs. From that point on, Lombard began shooting more and more of these gatherings, evolving the photographs into a long term series documenting Meetup culture around the country. "At a certain point along the way," Lombard tells us, "I kind of had to play the role of therapist on myself: What is it exactly that is appealing to me about the idea of documenting people coming together from the Internet and finding their people?" Lombard's latest book, Connected, designed by Elysia Berman, follows groups ranging from "Parrot and Kimono Lovers" to the Harry Potter obsessed, with a curious, yet non-othering eye, looking to how they use social media to find community in real life. We spoke with Amy to learn more about the series and her inspiration behind it. The project was supported by the VSCO Artist Initiative, and you can buy the book HERE.
© Serrah Russell, 2009
"I made this piece in 2009 and a friend of mine told me to hang onto it, that it would mean something in the future. I guess he was right as it sure means something to me right now."
- Serrah Russell
Found photo courtesy of the collection of Ben Alper/ The Archival Impulse
Regardless of your political leanings, the world, in all its beauty, can be a complex and terrifying place. Especially in light of the 2016 US Presidential election, we approach an uncertain future. For Humble Arts Foundation's final open call of 2016, we'd like to see photo-based work that represents the world to come. Is it a dystopia overrun by robots and holograms? An egalitarian paradise? The death of photography as we know it? A self-conscious riff on Fritz Lang's Metropolis? Something more abstract?
Show us your vision or interpretation of the future. And while you're at it, listen to this Milemarker record from which we borrowed the name.
Submission Details:
DEADLINE:
December 1, 2016