Canyonites Invited to Be Photographed for Mural Collage on Oct. 10

By Laurel Busby

News & Information Editor

Gallery 169 owner Frank Langen and photographer Josh Madson are combining forces to celebrate the Rustic Canyon community.

On Saturday, Oct. 10, residents can participate in a brief and free Canyon Square photo session, which includes two digital portraits. Madson’s eventual goal is to combine these pictures to create a portrait collage of the Canyon community that will be displayed at Gallery 169 during a Dec. 12 unveiling and reception.

Madson, who has shot advertising campaigns for Nike, L’Oreal, and other companies, doesn’t plan to stop there. He has already created a collage of his Minnesota hometown and six other cities. He plans to do similar portrait collages of a total of 28 Los Angeles County communities in time for the 2028 Olympics. When the project is complete, he will have photographed 40,000 SoCal faces.

“There are going to be these portrraits of all different parts of town,” Langen said. Madson “is quite infectious, and … he is basically for creating community, which is right up my alley.”

The event echoes a past Gallery 169 exhibit that Langen organized about 15 years ago, which featured photographs of Canyon residents, service people, business owners, and other community members. When the exhibit ended, all of the portraits were distributed to the people who had been photographed.

“That was really fun, and so this kind of reminded me of that but, of course, on a much bigger scale,” Langen said.

Generally, Langen is approached by a few people each week with ideas for gallery shows or Canyon Square concerts, and he decides who to feature based on varied criteria, ranging from how much their art appeals to him to whether the show might work in the gallery’s schedule.

“Josh came out of nowhere,” Langen said. “He literally was one of those people that just came to the Square and people kept saying, ‘You’ve got to meet Frank.’ We finally met and we just had an immediate connection….. I thought [the community mural] was a great idea.”

Any resident who would like to participate can email info@redlightpr.com to schedule a shoot time between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10. Walk-ins are also welcome, although they are not guaranteed a time slot.

Two free digital portraits will be emailed to each participant immediately after the 2-3 minute photo session. Participants should arrive 5 minutes before their time slot, which will be allocated in 15-minute increments.

To learn more about Madson’s project, visit this YouTube link. To get involved or become a sponsor, contact cindy@communitycollage.org.