Stieglitz19 Arthur Goemaerelei 19 2018 Antwerpen/Anvers Belgique
John Humble's super-saturated photographs give gorgeous visual form to the unnatural beauty of Los Angeles. He depicts the sprawling city as a vast spider web of power lines, railway and streets. In this network of electricity, steel and concrete, people are trapped like helpless insects.
But Humble's crystal-clear pictures are not one-dimensional critiques of L.A.'s inhuman artificiality. Neither are they giddy celebrations of sunshine, stardom and seduction. They reflect, instead a deep embivalence about the city, fusing sharp contradictions in stunning compositions.
Humble masterfully exploits South California sunlight to hols his pictures together. He takes most of his pictures on clear days in the late afternoon, when the light is brightest and the shadows darkest.