Celebrity Mug Shot Masterpiece

Forever Young!

Two weeks ago, I found the coolest little fan-made gem on Yahoo's news scrawl: an artist mocked up vintage photos of gangsters with actual mug shots of Hollywood actors and actresses. The work of Michael Jason Enriquez is really impressive, and not just because I love sepia tone; truly, his Mughsot Doppelganger tubmlr deserves attention.

There's are reasons that I wanted Fan-made Gems to be a weekly entry on the site - not just to make writing this blog a little easier, but to highlight how Cinema folds in to so many other forms of art. I also wanted to give credit to all the people that are inspired by film, especially anyone who draws positive, creative inspiration from what we get on the big screen. These things matter to me.

And what kind of result do we get from Enriquez? It's freakishly cool: he took old mobster photos and used them to rework - actually, to class up - the booking photos of some of our most notoriously-arrested celebrities. Each of these shots looks like it was taken in 1920's Chicago or they're the poster shots for a new Untouchables movie.

This really looks like it's for his Sherlock Holmes pix.

Still, whether for the photo manipulation, or the shock of old clothing and hair styles, there something about this work that is deeply engaging. I've never seen a few of these people in a movie before (Lohan, Bynes), some are celebrities whose looks disturb me,  and a few are... I can't understand why they're famous at all.

They may have done a lot to boost his rep, but the Yahoo article failed to grasp something about the work: Enriquez did not include a side-by-side with the original photo. It's all about the effect - something that the artist shows on his site quite neatly; it's good enough to see these familiar people in such an unfamiliar way.

However, for those of you who've never heard about or seen any of these mugshots before, you will probably require a look at Yahoo's presentation. And, as a photographer, I like seeing the source material that this person used. It's all so terribly neat!

You should check out both links, then. I could go on about how cool these pictures are, but I need write no more - look, and enjoy.

That look is surprisingly good, on her.