With a few stories spanning a few decades, photographer Neal Rantoul shares his affection and admiration for fellow photographer, teacher, and friend Harry Callahan.
I Like Trees: Neal Rantoul on Harry Callahan
August Issue, 2025
A collection of all the articles we’ve published over the past month, for those who like to savor their Magpies’ tidings as an issue.
Letter From the Editor, August, 2025: Cloud Studies
With clouds, within seconds, you’re working from your memory of a thing that is as nebulous and beautiful and temperamental as memory itself. As confusing as memory, seen from within the mist, as perplexing seen from afar.
Magpies Mix Tape: The Merry Blues
A mix tape of the music of Manu Chao and friends
Beauty in Odd Places: An Interview with Lauren Barnett
“Like everywhere we go, even a highway or a junk yard or a parking lot has something about it that you want to capture or remember. It’s nice to go through your day expecting to find beauty in odd places.”
Illustrating a classic –revisiting artworks on The Conference of the birds
Art historian Soma Ghosh examines the many versions of illustrations for ‘The Conference of the birds’ or the ‘Mantiq al tair’ by Attar of Nishapur
Spolia: From the Sublime to the Delightfully Utilitarian
“At a deeper level, however, use of spolia usurped and appropriated the might and worth of rulers, donors, and civilizations who originally built the monuments from which spolia elements were taken, and imbued new structures with added significance.”
Olive Borden (on Fig Leaves)
“A month later I am dead. So, girls, if you want my advice, never play Eve, the mother of all men.”
Breakers
“In subsequent weeks, I might take time to look at it and see what I’ve done. Or in this case, listen to the waves.”
Magpies’ Comic Section: Nice to be a Bunny
A new comic for the Magpies’ Comic Section.
magpiesmagazine.com 