An ice cream melting slowly in the sun, next to a tray of pearls on which the elegant silhouette of a Chanel n.5 bottle rises. Lindsay Lohan watching something off-frame. A studio door slightly ajar, with light filtering through to illuminate an intimate detail. It is in these fragments that Rude in the Good Way, Roe Ethridge’s new book, comes alive: an unpredictable, seductive flow where everyday life, pop culture, and advertising coexist and intermingle. Ethridge does not simply photograph; he translates the world into a visual choreography, where every element, from the most mundane to the most iconic, becomes a symbol of desire, aspiration, and estrangement. What makes the book so powerful is the way Ethridge combines opposing worlds. A glossy Chanel still life can coexist with a forgotten kitchen object; a private shot of Lulu Sylbert merges with the celebrity of Lindsay Lohan.
Images duplicate, interrupt, and overlap: perfect scenes fracture, spontaneous shots acquire erotic or emotional tension. It is a polyphonic collage, where each photograph is a tile in a larger mosaic, and the viewer suddenly questions what they desire, and how they have interpreted the world until now. Fashion runs through many pages of the book as a narrative material, a lexicon of images that the photographer imbues with new meaning. Ethridge approaches fashion as a visual device, not merely a subject. Clothes become surfaces on which to experiment with the play between pose and reality. Every shape, fold, texture, and color dialogues with the next image, creating a rhythm reminiscent of an invisible runway. It is a reflection on contemporary fashion: a garment is no longer just what you wear, but what it communicates and provokes.
“You’re taking whatever is coming at you, and doing something with it, sectioning off something in the world. I make each picture without thinking too much, but I bring my entire self to it.”
The book also highlights the tension between the public and the private. Ordinary objects, advertising campaigns, and intimate shots coexist without disrupting the balance, transforming into metaphors of desire and aspiration. It is this polyphony that makes Rude in the Good Way a complex work. Each photograph functions as a small laboratory. Ethridge works with sequence, layering, and recombination, creating a narrative that is not read with the eyes alone, but with the viewer’s perception. Advertising, fashion, and private life merge, producing a collection of moments that oscillate between familiarity and strangeness. The result is a fully sensory experience, one that unsettles, confirming Ethridge as a master of sequencing and visual stratification.
Rude in the Good Way is a book that builds worlds, provokes desire, and challenges the conventions of contemporary photography. In this visual space, the image ceases to merely represent and begins to function. Ethridge’s shots transform the ordinary into an unstable territory, where nothing is truly neutral and the gaze is constantly tested.
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