Found photograph from the collection of Ben Alper / The Archival Impulse

Songs about photography to listen to while you edit, shoot, curate, write, or do whatever it is you do at your non-photo-related day-job

For the past year or so, it’s been a fun quarterly tradition for us to “curate” (and on that note, remember a few years ago when folks in the art/photo community, including us, got mad at overuse of that word to describe organizing things like tech, music, or sock drawers, that we thought weren’t “curate-able” - we digress…) a Spotify mix related to the themes of our online exhibitions.

But we’ve never created one of songs more generally (or specifically) about photography.

So here goes - 30+ songs about photography to keep your mind on photography, often with the word “photography” (or camera) in the title or lyrics.

Special thanks to photographer and fellow music nerd Ben Alper for letting us use an image from his snapshot collection for the cover. Have fun, enjoy, and feel free to drop us an angry or friendly note letting us know what we’re missing.

PostedJanuary 17, 2019

AuthorEditors

CategoriesGalleries

Tagssongs about photography, songs about cameras, photography songs, photography mix tape

© Sally Mann. Blackwater 3, 2008–2012. Tintype. Collection of the artist — © Sally Mann. *Blackwater 3, 2008–2012.* Tintype. Collection of the artist

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings isn’t just a glorious smattering of the artist’s photographs. The exhibition brims with tension between Sally Mann’s identity and a landscape tainted with racist history.

As a white woman who grew up in the American South, Mann’s representation of history and memory is loaded and heavy with complications. Most of the photographs on display in A Thousand Crossings – on view at the Getty Center until February 10, 2019 – are about memory and history: a cluster of domestic photographs of her children exploring the Virginia wilderness on vacation is juxtaposed with numerous images of Civil War battlefields, of Southern rivers and streams, of the Black woman who helped raise her, and the Black men she never noticed in her segregated community as a child. The sense of mystery and wonder she conjures in images of Civil War battlefields – and the swampy river beds where enslaved people found refuge and escape – is challenged by the inherent nature of these locations as sites and reminders of the horrific system of American chattel slavery.

Exhibition review by Deborah Krieger

PostedJanuary 8, 2019

AuthorDeborah Krieger

CategoriesExhibitions, Artists, Galleries

TagsSally Mann, A Thousand Crossings, Getty Museum, Deborah Krieger, Blackwater River, The Two Virginias, Controversial Photography

Humble editors select standouts in 2018 (online) photography writing

In his essay in Blindspot’s 2006 issue #32, Tim Davis wrote “people never read book introductions…,” a statement that, written more than a decade ago, unfortunately, continues to resound more than ever before and can be aptly applied to today’s “content” hungry landscape. We scroll rapidly through Instagram and eat listicles (like this one!) like Cheetos. Onto the next, onto the next, onto the next like an accelerated tangent of highway billboards in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. And defensiveness among countless photographers to write about their work seems ever present – just search “artist statement” into any Facebook photo group (yes we know, FB is for “old people” - go watch some YouTube "influencers," kids..) and you’ll hydrate yourself on the haterade for weeks. BUT! BUT! BUT!

But the “don’t make me think” attitude towards writing is counterbalanced by a ton of thoughtful essays, interviews and long form think-pieces on the current state of photography, its evolution and key issues that tie it to the larger cultural landscape. Below are 22 pieces on photography that moved us, in no particular order. You’ll notice that many of the pieces we selected are heavy on discussion of “the gaze,” which seems to have garnered a renewed attention in criticism and popular discussion over the past few years, and likely has been on our minds gearing up for the BlueSky Curatorial Prize this May.

Grab a couple coffees, mute Instagram for a bit, and have a read.

Winter snapshot from the collection of Robert E. Jackson - get familiar with it!

It's been an ongoing tradition on FlakPhoto and Humble to share grippingly cold photos this time of year.
We want to see yours.

For Humble Arts Foundation's first open call of 2019, send us your photographs representing winter - literally, abstractly, or a "wintery mix" ( <-- see what we did?!) that's somewhere in between. Show us your vision of a cold, cold world, and don't be afraid to get layered, wild, metaphorical, or even political if the occasion arises.

We're teaming up with FlakPhoto again this year – longtime friend and photographer megaphone Andy Adams will be co-curating alongside Humble's co-founder Jon Feinstein. The group show will live on Humble's website and we'll feature select images on Instagram @HumbleArtsFoundation and @FlakPhoto in late February, 2019. (P.S. - in case you’re waiting with bated breath, Group Show #59: Numerology will go live before the new year. Stay tuned!)

Deadline: January 20, 2019

Curated by Jon Feinstein and Andy Adams

GUIDELINES: (please read carefully)

PostedDecember 22, 2018

AuthorEditors

CategoriesExhibitions, Open Call

Tagswinter photography, FlakPhoto, Andy Adams, Jon Feinstein, winter pictures, photography open call, no fee open call, Flak Photo

Lindsay Metivier finds soul in fleeting moments.

For the past few years, North Carolina-by-way-of-Boston-based Metivier has gathered her often random-seeming photos into an archive of quiet musings. On the surface, they might appear unrelated, but there’s a strange specificity to her chaotic eye.

Cheap drinks in clear plastic cups beside a chlorine-green swimming pool. An obtuse circular imprint in a concrete slab. A blue paper card that reads “crisis” – found, or intentionally placed on a patch of grass (it’s unclear, and that’s fine.) A barrage of sometimes fresh, sometimes moldy sun-soaked oranges and orange peels obsessively collected and sent to the artist from friends near and far. These pictures gather details from daily life and celebrate the charge below their arbitrary surface.

Following her thesis exhibition earlier this year, I reached out to learn what brings her work together.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Lindsay Metivier

PostedDecember 18, 2018

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Portfolio

TagsLindsay Metivier, New Color Photography, color photography, art photography, contemporary photography

This Is Not A Photograph: Songs About Photography – A Humble / Spotify Mixtape

Negotiating History: Sally Mann’s "A Thousand Crossings" Exhibition and the Question of Photographic Privilege

Reading's Not Dead: 22 Essays, Interviews and Other Sharp (Online) Photography Writing You Should Have Read in 2018

Open Call: Group Show #60 – Winter Pictures 2019

Lindsay Metivier: Archiving the Ordinary