Roe Ethridge juxtaposes fashion compositions with rough-and-ready snapshots of ordinary life in Sacrifice Your Body, his latest collection of photographs, published by Mack Books. From the posed to the unplanned, the New York-based artist and photographer is indiscriminate in his focus: portraits for luxury brand Alexis Bittar and still lives rub shoulders with dead fish and discarded cartons. His nomadic style was initially informed by his experience working as a photographic assistant on multiple types of assignment, ranging from catalogue and commercial work to stock photography. "I always loved fashion pictures and the notion of commercial photography, people like Irving Penn," Ethridge says. NOWNESS caught up with the artist who has been exhibited at institutions across the globe, including MoMA in New York, the Barbican in London and Les Recontres D’Arles in France, and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize in 2011. 

Why Sacrifice Your Body?
Roe Ethridge: When I played High School football in suburban Atlanta I used to hear this group of mothers shouting "Sacrifice Your Body!"

Do you try to break down the divide between commercial commissions and casual snapshots of ‘real’ life?
RE: I don't know if I feel like it's a breaking down process. I used to think of it as a kind of 'atomizing' but now I think its so much about how to recombine, to synthesize.

The Scot Tissue toilet paper in the Chanel shoot undercuts the notion of luxury while still elevating it. Which do you prefer—the discarded or the stylized?
RE: That one was for Self Service. I found that toilet paper roll in the basement of my house in Rockaway Beach. I'm guessing it's from the 40s. Discarded or stylized? Both are necessary for me.