In May, we posted a story on Charlotta Janssen’s portraits of the Freedom Riders. Shannon Greer, her fiancé, shot the video that was posted on the Oprah website – and the project left quite an impression on him.
He began by taking a simple portrait of a friend of his, Jason Salkey, who was in town visiting from London. (Fun fact: Salkey is used to taking headshots. He’s an actor who has appeared in Memphis Belle, About a Boy, and played Rifleman Harris in the Sharpe series opposite Sean Bean.) Shannon set up a gray seamless in Charlotta’s studio, which he says, “has beautiful north light.” After taking Jason’s portrait, he called in Charlotta and took hers as well. He left the seamless up, calling other friends over and taking their portraits.
At first, Shannon thought he’d come up with a novel idea: mug shots of all of his friends. But then he realized that this idea had sprung from Charlotta’s portraits of the Freedom Riders. She had been working on over a hundred paintings the previous year, all from the mug shots taken of the Freedom Riders at Hines County Jail in Jackson, Mississippi.
We’re so happy Charlotta’s work inspired this project, because we love the results! One of Shannon’s friends, Walt Cessna, even asked to use his portrait for the cover of a book he had just written (pictured below).
Check out Shannon’s portraits here:
http://www.shannongreer.com/#/PORTFOLIO/Portraits/1/
Here’s our original post on Charlotta’s portraits:
http://www.alyssapizer.com/blog/inspirations/236/