An old high school friend contacted me about possibly doing a portrait of him based on a photo he liked of himself. I said I would try. It is not a photo I would choose as it's too posed, to traditionally composed. But he really liked it and my partner did as well. So I went at it. It was surprisingly hard to do as the contrast isn't high, I didn't want to focus on details that would make him look older or having less hair. Imagine my surprise when he came back to me, twice, asking me to remove more and more hair. In the end, he was happy with it and I guess that's all that matters. I kept to my favorite Dutch masters brown palette which, seeing it was a black and white photo, seemed totally appropriate. I would have done this totally differently. At least he looked through my portrait book and told me what he liked, so that's a bonus.