Six years ago, I stopped a young man named Ephraim on a busy street in SoHo and asked if I could take his portrait. It was a day after his 19th birthday and he was painting a mural. We stayed in touch and later that year, I cast him for his first modeling job in a national underwear campaign. And this month, that first portrait we made together ended up on the cover of the wonderful thesunmagazine. Meanwhile, Ephraim travels the world, studying the agave plant in Mexico, buying a motorcycle in Kenya, and he still paints murals. Follow along with his adventures at openairmurals Swipe to see the original photo, the cover, some behind-the-scenes moments (taken by my good friend pauljunbear) and a bonus frame from the day we met. I also spoke with The Sun’s photo editor, Rachel Elliott, about the process of selecting cover images, and that conversation’s in this week’s issue of Process. Shot on the Pentax 645N loaded up with kodak #portra400