The Making of a Celebrity Portrait by Ian Ruhter

“Based on who this person is I knew I would scrutinize this image far more than any other portrait that I had ever made. During this project “The Making of a Celebrity Portrait,” it redefined how I view celebrities. It made me question if celebrity culture influenced us so greatly that we want to be portrayed like them. In a world that revolves around social networking and selfies I started wondering what these images really say about us.”

“NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. I’m asking you to include a photograph of yourself for this project. The idea is to collect many images so we can create one picture of who we really are. On Instagram, #iamthecelebrity with a portrait of you. Follow @ian_ruhter and @Profotoglobal for project updates. All month long we’ll be cataloguing and commenting on these images. Once this is done we’ll create the final project—stay tuned for updates!”