It’s been a decade since Todd Selby published his last book. The photographer’s self-described “artful snooping” placed him firmly in the vanguard of the early aughts blogging scene, documenting compelling personalities in their colorful spaces for his online journal. But what began as a personal project rapidly escalated into a lucrative career, with his debut book—The Selby Is In Your Place—releasing in 2010. (The first printing of 12,000 copies sold out within the first month.) Since then, he’s introduced two additional books, one on fashion, the other on food, and now, his fourth arrives on April 16: The Selby Comes Home.
“It’s like a coming home for myself in a sense,” he says to Vogue, noting that he now shares two children—Ella and Simone—with his wife, Danielle Sherman, whom he married in 2015. The focus of this new book comes from two or so years of traveling around the world photographing subjects in their homes, but with a very riotous addition to the frame: children.
“Having kids reorients your entire viewpoint. When kids enter the picture, it’s an interesting thing from an interior perspective and I wanted to explore how children impact the creative’s home,” he says. Before this project, it wasn’t necessarily within his purview as a photographer. “In the beginning, I would avoid them at all costs because kids equal chaos; it was so challenging to work with them because they’re so unpredictable.” But now that he’s a parent and continues to evolve as an artist, his lens is refocusing. “I decided I was going to embrace the weirdness of the moment and the chaos and the creativity, and kids definitely bring that in heaps.”
The Selby Comes Home transports readers into the wild and wonderful homes of 41 families around the globe, from Brooklyn to Bora Bora, and includes playful interactive details like mazes, crossword puzzles, and color-by-number pages to be enjoyed by readers both young and young at heart. One such shoot took place in Nashville at the eccentric residence of artist Vadis Turner, her husband Clay Ezell, and their sons Gray and Vreeland, whom Selby met through a mutual friend and “New York legend,” Libby Callaway (who has since moved back to Nashville). “The way Vadis relates to her interiors is almost like she’s adopting these art objects into her home,” he says. “I think she has the same kind of attraction to objects and furniture and stories as I do, so yeah, it was love at first meet with her and her family and their space.”