Blue Earth by Bryce Duffy, edited and designed by Carmen Dunjko (Pictureality), 124 pages, $50 cloth (limited edition at Pages, Delphic and Stephen Bulger Gallery). Rating: NNNNN
NOW regular contributor Bryce Duffy’s first book, Blue Earth, features previously unpublished images he photographed in North America, Europe and Asia while on assignment for high-profile American mags Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune and George. Text is kept to a bare minimum — only half a dozen pages include words — keeping the focus on the photo imagery. Many of the portraits are instantly recognizable, including location shots of Hollywood superstars Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe and Forest Whitaker. Others — images of venture capitalists in their Silicon Valley offices, Bristol club kids or members of Students for a Free Tibet at a Malibu action training camp — require some explanation. The landscapes range from lush British Columbia seascapes to close-ups of bullet holes in a Miami car door. Despite the incredible diversity of the imagery, each shot occupies a full page, creating a subtext of absolute equality among the subjects. Blue Earth looks and feels like an act of love, and you can’t get much more real than that.
