Woman Crush Wednesday: Iris Humm
the lake © Iris Humm
Family appears to play an important role for you, especially in your photography. Is there a moment or story that prompted you to start documenting your family and home that you are willing to share?
Not in particular –– I’d been documenting everything around me since the age of 15, and it felt natural to also document my family. I started taking pictures of my father and sister at our home in Switzerland without ever planning on a body of work. It felt very instinctive and necessary, probably as a way of better understanding myself and my connection to them.
You capture natural light in a beautiful way. Is there a reason you are more drawn to natural light as opposed to artificial light? Is it your environment that inspired this?
I’ve always been drawn to natural light, in particular to sunlight. I think it’s a combination of both my parents teaching me how to be a good observer and not having studied photography, so it was just me and a camera and the available light, which always happened to be natural. I was never particularly interested in the technicalities of photography, in lighting a scene versus looking for the right light. Now, I live in Barcelona, where the light is great almost all year long. I’d have a hard time living somewhere with very little sunshine!
at home in Milan © Iris Humm
Since you have been photographing your family’s summer lake house for years, what has been the biggest change you have seen, if any? How has this influenced the way you photograph people outside of your family?
It’s interesting for me to see how these photographs I take of my family evolve and how they reflect the experience I am having with my family in a particular moment in time: We grow up, we change, our relationship with our parents and siblings is constantly evolving. This work has definitely helped me understand how we function as a family, how I relate to them, and how to be vulnerable. I find taking portraits of people outside the family much easier; the dynamics are different. It’s about allowing the person I am photographing to be themselves without you getting in the way, whereas in my personal work, I am getting in the way in the sense that I am a daughter and a sister, I am part of the story.
father © Iris Humm
If you could teach a one-hour class on anything, what would it be?
Approaching photography in an intuitive way.
summer © Iris Humm
What was the last book you read or film you saw that inspired you?
Finally bought myself “The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams” by Alessandra Sanguinetti, where she follows two cousins, Guille and Belinda, (9 and 10 years old) for five years. It is such a tender, intimate book, and the cousins' relationship as well as their relationship to the photographer is so wonderfully captured.
the last hours of sun © Iris Humm
What is the most played song in your music library?
Probably something by Khruangbin.
How do you take your coffee?
I rarely drink coffee, but in summer I love a café con hielo, an espresso with ice.
Shir the cat © Iris Humm
To view more of Iris’s work, visit her website
