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If you don’t know Todd Selby’s work, you should.

Visit Selby at his website.

Comment. Let us know what you think.

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About the book

The Selby Is in Your Place was conceived when fashion and interiors photographer Todd Selby began taking portraits of dynamic and creative people—authors, musicians, artists, and designers—in their home environments and posting them on his web site. Nosy by nature, he wanted to see how personal style was reflected in private spaces. Lucky for us, he found his answer in the color-rich and eclectic quarters of a diverse group of subjects, including Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Faris Rotter, Andre Walker, and Olivier Zahm, in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, and London. Each profile is accompanied by Selby’s watercolor portraits of the subjects and objects from their homes, and illustrated questionnaires, which Selby asks each sitter to fill out. This book consists of over thirty profiles, many of which have never-before-seen, selected exclusively for the book. The result is a collection of unique spaces bursting with energy and personality that together create a colorful hodgepodge of inspirational interiors.

About the author
Todd Selby is an interiors, fashion, and portrait photographer and painter. His photographs can be regularly seen in British Vogue, Vogue Hommes International, Dazed and Confused, Another Magazine, Nylon, New York Magazine, and the London Sunday Times.

Lesley Arfin is the New York-based author of Dear Diary and the former editor of Missbehave magazine.

(from Abrams website)

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Note: This entry was originally published in 2004. It received many comments in its email only version. What say you?

Why They Do Not

The following excuses are quoted from interviews with photographers.

1.  I don’t have time. (Instead of waiting until your spouse calls you to bed and expresses concern that you are married to your computer or  television, bring a book to bed and read yourself to sleep. Pleasant dreams.)

2.  What am I going to get out of it? (Hmmmmm!)

3.  I am dyslexic. (Some of the most visually creative people I know are dyslexic. There are many websites which deal with adult dyslexia. Books on tape — there are many today — are an alternative.)

4.  It’s a waste of time. I’d rather watch television. (Hear an interview on hot and cool media with the philosopher Marshall McLuhan given in 1965. He was the author of The Medium is the Message. In hot media like television everything is provided for you. In cool (hip) media like reading fiction, all of our sensory tools are exercised. Jump forward some 45 years to the present. How does the personal computer exercise our senses?)

5.  My first priority is to stay on top of the new technology. (My first priority as an artist is to grow creatively. I have taught myself technology on a need to know basis.  Technology represents tools to make creating easier, more economical, and introduces some new ways to render, among other things. It doesn’t replace ideas. Fiction stimulates the imagination and involves all the senses. Many of us hide out in technology. And yes indeed, we need to keep current. It is demanded of us.)

6.  I am a visually oriented person. I prefer to look at photography books. I get most my best ideas by looking at other people’s pictures. (Reading fiction helps us to see things in our mind’s eye which is where most concepts live and develop. I believe that ideas are developed upon ideas. I believe that photographers ideas will develop when they step outside of their medium for sources.)

7.  I am practical. I don’t have time for fantasy. (The ability to create depends upon the imagination. The imagination is exercised by the abilities to fantasize.)

8.  I am more interested in the truth. (All photographs are lies.)

9.  I am looking for role models. If I had the time, I’d read biographies of other photographers. (Read biographies and biographical fiction about all kinds of artists. To understand Louis Daguerre, read The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. This is fiction based upon history.)

10. Reading fiction is irrelevant and distractive. I should be placing all my free time into marketing, or… (Which is more important, compiling a mailing list and sending an email that is unlikely to be opened, or creating a promotional concept that will exercise the imaginations of the recipient?)

11. I only read self-help books. I actually read nine of them this year. (An occasional self-help book may help motivate you. Make sure that you leave time to put what you have learned into action.)

Why They Should

Unless you are photographing a process or how to do something, you are probably interested in evoking emotions and challenging the eye and mind. Fiction’s aim is to give the reader an emotional and intellectual experience.

Fiction invites the photographer to see the world differently and to grow creatively.

(more…)

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