In the editor's letter that opens VICE magazine's photo issue, photo editor Elizabeth Renstrom writes about the "patient eye" that every great photographer has. It's "the eye that finds the just-so mise-en-scène that discovers a moment of grace between people in horrible circumstances," she writes. "The eye that tells a new truth. It also happens that, this year, all those eyes belong to women."
VICE 's photo issue regularly puts together a unique and compelling mix of images. This time, each image is from a woman's perspective. This isn't VICE 's "girl issue," Renstrom clarifies. It's a collection of artistic and journalistic images that all come from a global female perspective. Not every image is of or about women, but every photo fulfills the goals of Renstrom and the magazine's editor-in-chief Ellis Jones: lessening the deficit in representation of female artists.
The 184-page issue features the work of 38 female photographers. For Renstrom and Jones, it was important to showcase a mix of veteran and up and coming talent, and images from around the world. Inside, there's a photo series about women of color forging their identities in college, photos of barber shops in little Sudan, ghouls and werewolves, and hidden gems that were packed away for years before appearing in the publication.
"A lot of our motivation always comes from having those young photographers that we think are doing great work, that we’d like to work with more and kind of help jump-start their careers," Jones said. "But at the same time, we also want to nod to the older generation that are more established photographers who have done so much already, who are amazing and who we love."
VICE 's photo issue — the magazine's 15th — also features a special collaboration with Instagram. A series of 19 minute-long shorts will be posted between August 1 and August 25.
Ahead, check out 10 images that showcase the variety of work selected for VICE 's photo issue, along with quotes from our interview with Renstrom and Jones about the magazine.
Endia Beal
Elizabeth: "A lot of the stories are really diverse, and I think that was the one thing Ellis and I did discuss going into it. We don’t want this to be VICE’s 'girl issue' and have it be that kind of 'teenage dream' girly content. I was super happy with the diversity, and I think that when you’re considering representing a wide variety of stories globally, it shows."
Photo: Endia Beal, Courtesy of Vice.
Izumi Miyazaki
Elizabeth: "Izumi Miyazaki is somebody I found on Tumblr, maybe four or five years ago when she first started putting out her self-portraits. I went to Japan’s version of our photo and book festival, and she was selling tote bags of herself as toast. [Laughs] I kept that forever, and when I first started my position at VICE she didn’t have an email available, so I sent countless messages to her on Tumblr. She basically replied maybe a month out from when we were expected to print the magazine, so that was kind of a big get for me and I was really excited about that."
Photo: Izumi Miyazaki, Courtesy of Vice.
Carolyn Drake
Elizabeth: "It’s not that feminism is a trend or anything like that, I’m happy that it is you know, but I think that a lot of places descend into a list of like, ‘these are the essential female photographers that you need to be looking at’, and it’s not really that. It’s just that these are 38 people who are amazing, and maybe they just didn’t have as much exposure as we’re giving them, before."
Photo: Carolyn Drake, Courtesy of Vice.
Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi
Elizabeth: "[Each photographer had a] real commitment to their subject matter. Especially in the photojournalism, just making sure the stories they’re sharing are doing justice to their subjects, and not being exploitative. That makes me really happy to see, and that’s the kind of photojournalism that I like to highlight. A lot of times, you send somebody someplace and get parachute journalism. But I got a real sense of understanding from the photographers and their stories. It's something I’m really proud of and worked hard to get across."
Photo: Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, Courtesy of Vice.
Natalie Keyssar
Elizabeth: "Some [projects] I assigned and gave people a five day period to cover. Others are just really long-term projects that people have worked on for years. Like Natalie Keyssar’s images out of Venezuela, that’s a project that she started, I think, back in 2013. Those are images that haven’t been published that she’s held really close to her, because she was looking for the right platform and the right way to represent them. So it’s a lot of work that’s been held closely by people, so it’s a huge honor for me to publish a lot of it."
Photo: Natalie Kessar, Courtesy of Vice.
Val Wilmer
Ellis: "With the selections we made, we thought it would be interesting to see who we could pair next to each other. So maybe someone who closely follows the photo world might flip the page and see Val Wilmer next to someone they've have no idea about... We were just excited to make it as varied as possible. "
Photo: Val Wilmer, Courtesy of Vice.
Sue de Beer
Elizabeth: "Sue de Beer is somebody that I referenced in my paper to get into college! I’ve been looking at her stuff for the past 10 to 15 years. For her to agree to collaborate with me on a new original series was a dream come true.
"For her shoot I had no clue what the theme was. When she sent me the call sheet it had zombie, puritans, and werewolves on it, and I was like, ‘Oh, okay... This is what we’re doing.'" [Laughs]
Photo: Sue de Beer, Courtesy of Vice.
Tamara Abdul Hadi
Elizabeth: "We had Tamara Abdul Hadi go to Tel Aviv to kind of capture a series of barber shops in little Sudan. I saw, of course, the still photographs afterwards, but she got video interviews with some of the barbers and stuff. That is just like, really amazing to see, and I think it really adds to the story. It’s a lot of extra work, but I think it’s totally worth it."
Photo: Tamara Abdul Hadi, Courtesy of Vice.
Weronika Gęsicka
Ellis: "It was important to us to do a mix of young people and those who have careers in the field. We obviously don’t want it to be filled with white female photographers who are based in the United States, only covering stories in the United States. We wanted to make sure there was a good global feel of content coming from all over the world, and also, of course, to make sure that there’s people of color and to make sure that we just got all angles."
Photo: Weronika Gęsicka, Courtesy of Vice.
Atong Atem
Elizabeth: "I’ve used [Instagram] to find people in the past, and it’s also a really great way for me to keep up with what younger artists are doing in their studio practices everyday. Atong Atem is is somebody I definitely found on Instagram, I don’t even know how. [Laughs] I think maybe one of her portrait sessions was posted and somebody DMed it to me. I emailed her and she sent me her whole series."
Photo: Atong Atem, Courtesy of Vice.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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