We are excited to announce The Blue Issue!

Copies are on their way to subscribers.

Editor’s Letter

The Kennebec River in Maine is a grayish blue. As an undergraduate student, I submerged myself in its cold, brackish water for a self-portrait. In October. I made several exposures with the camera’s 30 second timer before I began to turn blue. 

Rich with emotional complexity, blue evokes sorrow, but it can also conjure feelings of peace and serenity. It is a primary color, from which most others are made. There are no sad reds, no melancholy oranges or somber yellows. We ache with the blues, and we sing them.

We live on a blue planet. But although the color is seemingly all around us, it is rarely found in nature. Mountains appear blue only at a distance, and the sky and water adopt the hue through an illusion caused by sunlight and atmosphere. 

These pages contain blue shades in royal, azure, navy, cobalt, cornflower, sky, and slate. This issue is dedicated to photographers who embrace blue as a color, a mood, a movement, and a metaphor. 

— Kat Kiernan, Editor-in-Chief