Pitchfork

Chances are, you've come across Sam Jones' work somewhere: in magazines, perhaps, or-- since you're here, after all-- in the 2002 Wilco documentary that he directed, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. The occasional filmmaker is really a photographer at heart; those haunting, skeletal black and white shots of Chicago in Trying were evidence enough of that. Now Jones' print work has been anthologized in The Here and Now: The Photography of Sam Jones, out this week from Harper Entertainment.

The Here and Now collects over 100 of Jones' images of famous faces, some starkly captured in black and white, and many gussied up in uncharacteristic, borderline wacky wardrobes. Thespians abound, though a few tunesmiths made the cut: Jeff Tweedy of course, Johnny Ramone and Joe Strummer perched next to each other, a very preggers Tori Amos, a grinning Willie Nelson, Ice Cube at the movies, Aimee Mann and Michael Penn re-doing Dylan's famed Freewheelin' cover... oh, and barenaked Barenaked Ladies with their manparts tucked between their thighs. :-(

On the actor tip, there's some Cusacks, Seth Rogen, and a mustachioed Will Ferrell playing ping-pong, among others. George Clooney not only provides the book's foreword, but stares back at you with those mysterious, knowing eyes from the cover.

Jones is also lined up to direct a screen adaptation of David Foster Wallace's 1,000+ page novel Infinite Jest. How does one go about making a film with footnotes?