We’re All Wynners
I’d never been so nervous talking photo ideas as when I spoke with comedian John Wynn. He and Ian Bagg were playing Zanies in Nashville and we’d planned a shoot that weekend. John is Vietnamese, and I usually lean into a comic’s background or do the opposite. For John I chose the former, but I didn’t want to offend him with my one idea, so I asked Ian. Ian said he himself would be offended, which made me feel awful. A few hours later in the studio, when Ian went to the restroom, I asked John if Ian had told him my idea. He said no. “I asked Ian if you’d be offended if I asked you to try to eat a hot dog with chopsticks, and he said he’d be…”
Everything needed for this “sensitive“ photoshoot: hotdogs, mustard and chopsticks
John laughed for a full minute. I felt stupid for not realizing Ian was joking — and that this was actually a great idea. John was all in. We agreed to shoot the next day and bought four hot dogs from the stand down the block. While John ate two, I set up and my son Nicholas came to help. Now it’s time. Standing on a trash bag, John held mustard in his left hand and chopsticks in his right while we shot quickly. You can only put so much mustard on a hot dog before it’s unrecognizable, and John’s right hand must’ve been sore from the chopsticks. When we finished, Nicholas accepted the prop hot dog. After wiping most of the mustard off with a plastic knife, it was good to go, so he sat down to eat.
