This image of actor/musician/composer/friend Jim Bryce is one of my most popular photographs to date.
As an actor, Jim had to have standard actor head shots taken every so often. He called them ‘mugshots’. Needless to say that he didn’t like the idea of another ‘mugshot’ for this project. Anything but, in fact.
So we set out to find concepts for photographs that would better suit Jim’s personality. There is a significant difference between taking a picture and making one. The making of a photograph requires some planning and thought. Jim and I had a number of conversations about it, trying to think of as many ideas and concepts as possible.
I no longer remember precisely how Liu Bolin came into our conversation. He might have been in the news at the time. In any event, Liu Bolin is a Chinese artist who can paint himself to blend in any background. He provided the inspiration for the above photograph. We didn’t want Jim to completely blend in the background, like Liu Bolin does, but to appear to come out of it.
Since Jim is an avid book reader, we thought it would be appropriate for him to appear to come out of his bookcase. We tried a similar shot with a wall, but the bookcase picture we made worked out much better in the end.
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