In the late seventies Duffy stopped taking stills and moved onto commercials, never to return to the stills camera again. In the following years Duffy became reclusive and refused to give interviews or talk about his time at the top as a photographer.
During the 90’s Duffy’s son Chris became frustrated that Duffy’s name was slowly slipping into obscurity and regularly tried to persuade him to do something with his remaining archive. It wasn’t until 2006 when Duffy was diagnosed with the degenerative lung disease Pulmonary Fibrosis that he finally gave Chris the green light to start putting the archive together. The process was a labour of love for the first few years. Organising, scanning and databasing what remained took many hours whilst Chris was running his video production company.
In 2014 Duffy’s second book was released – ‘Five Sessions’ which covers his work with David Bowie. Written by Chris Duffy and Kevin Cann the book explores the chemistry and creation of these five iconic sets of images illustrated with interviews from people who were directly involved.
Iconic Images are incredibly excited to be working with the Duffy archive, look out for exciting news in the coming months.