MARKKATZMAN

When I met Frank Owen, his energy was electrifying. A celebrated, and sometimes controversial, writer he had enough colorful stories to paint a thousand pictures. After the three-hour drive to our subject in Southern Missouri, I realized that this man was a creative genius, the likes of which I rarely meet – or at least team up with to cover a story for Playboy! A prolific talker, he was mysteriously quiet when it came to discussing the assignment at hand. What did he have in mind? What was his take on this story? How could I partner with him to support his vision? I asked a lot of questions until I realized he was not really the ‘plan it out’ type. “Let’s see what happens.” he said. Finally he shared a thought – “I would love to see an image of him gazing out over a distant hill, sun peeking over the horizon… prepared for the world as we know it to end – the dawn of a new era.” Ok. Now we’re getting somewhere. It was 45 minutes before sunset and we asked our subject, “Any hills around here?” Yup… but they’re 40 min away. Hmm, that will leave us 5 min to scout and shoot. Buzzed from Frank’s energy, I said, “Let’s go!”

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