Earlier this year Seattle Met debuted a new monthly department called Quote Unquote, where we profile notable Seattleites in a two-page, as-told-to fashion. It’s quickly become my favorite thing to work on in the magazine, because the accompanying portraits are so fun to create. I approach them just like I approached my favorite Las Vegas Weekly cover photos. The only difference is that I don’t actually shoot Quote Unquote’s photos — I just art direct them — so I’m not all stressed out during the shoots.
At this point we’ve done ten Quote Unquotes (three of them haven’t been published yet). Here’s how the process usually goes: Quote Unquote editor Matt Halverson and I get together every month to hash out portrait ideas specific to the profession, interests or personality of the individual he’s profiling. Sometimes the concepts come together very quickly (like the one for this photo of a stuntman), and sometimes they require all kinds of deliberation (like the one for this photo of an illegal immigrant).
For the October issue we profiled Beh Huh, CEO and Founder of the Cheezburger Network (responsible for Internet sensations like FAIL Blog and, of course, I Can Has Cheezburger?:
I spent more time kicking around ideas for this one than I have for any other Quote Unquote portrait yet. I really wanted this one to be funny and memorable, and I wanted something unexpected. I kept postponing my meeting with Matt until I had something that I thought would be really exciting. Finally, on a walk with my dog, I had the idea to reference the 1969 Andy Warhol Esquire cover:
I wanted to have Ben Huh drowning in an over-sized bag of cat litter. I started imaging how we’d build the container, how we’d design the packaging, and how we’d fill it with cat litter. (I prefer to do everything we can in-camera, so I didn’t want to just Photoshop him into a bag.)
Just before I went to sleep that night, I came up with a backup plan: have him buried up to his neck in cat litter, as though it were sand at the beach. And have my Happy Cat lookalike Mason there next to him, ready to make use of the litter.
Yes, in an amazing coincidence, I just happen to own the same breed of cat pictured in the famous I Can Has Cheezburger? photo. Mason’s a 4-year-old blue British Shorthair that I got from a breeder in New York back in 2006 (a year before the I Can Has Cheezburger? photo ever started circulating).
Matt and I discussed it the next day, and we decided to bury Ben Huh up to his neck in cat litter. We were thrilled when he agreed to do it.
I hired John Keatley to shoot to photo. I had him use Fresh Step cat litter, because the flecks of blue are very photogenic. And because its Mason’s brand, I knew it smelled nice.
Getting Ben in the cat litter was the easy part. The hard part was working with Mason. He’s never been cooperative for any photo, so it was a real challenge getting him to do what we needed him to do.
Here’s Mason at the Cheezburger Network’s office, with some Happy Cat plush toys the company sells:
Ben with Mason (Ben’s actually allergic to cats):
Ben getting buried:
These two have real chemistry:
And here’s the final spread turned out:
Love your litter pic with Very creative! I’d be afraid too if they decided to use the litter!