Physiognomy: The Mark Seliger Photographs

Bulfinch Press, 224 pp., $75

Elizabeth Shue wrapped in an American flag. The Seinfeld cast frolicking in Oz. Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers au naturel. The award-winning photographs of Rolling Stone‘s Mark Seliger shine a ray of light into the person beneath the celebrity facade. Physiognomy is a gallery of photographs which lends a new dimension to stardom: humanity. Seliger’s photographs, gorgeously shot with a dazzling color palette or subtly muted in blacks and whites, show a side of celebrity rarely seen — catty (Ashley Judd cartwheeling on the beach), melancholy (Brad Pitt wearing an evening gown), seductive (Jenny McCarthy, splattering a hot dog with a stream of mustard), or serene (Loretta Lynn picking tomatoes in her garden). There’s a reason why someone who can bring to life the kinder, gentler side of Marilyn Manson is called the “connoisseur of countenance.”

This article appears in December 24 • 1999.

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