Covering Michael Douglas - NYTimes.com The cover of this week's New York magazine features a great portrait of the actor Michael Douglas. It really caught my eye and made me want to know more, so I got in touch with New York's director of photography, Jody Quon (who used to be the Times Magazine's deputy photo editor), and design director, Thomas Alberty; they answered my questions jointly via e-mail. Below, an insider's perspective on how the Douglas cover came about. What was the initial inspiration behind the image? We wanted only to hint at Michael-meets-Liberace, since a little goes a long way. Martin Schoeller, the photographer, loved our concept, agreed with the level of subtlety that we thought made sense. Martin's unique portrait lighting and graphic sensibility made for a terrific combination of reality meets fantasy/artifice. The touch of makeup above his left eye is subtle, striking and beautiful all at the same time. How did you decide on that approach? We experimented with the makeup and built it up as we made pictures to see how it was reading in camera. We spoke briefly about which eye, and determined the better eye to be the one on camera right, which would wind up on the right side of the cover - the sweet spot - where a reader's eye naturally lands. But aside from that it was pretty straightforward. There's not much dead space for type. How many iterations did you go through before arriving at a top-right solution? There was a lot of material in our Television Issue that we wanted to showcase on the cover. The challenge was where to put it all without hurting a fantastic photo. We went through a few type directions, starting with the headlines being in rails on either side of Douglas with our standard cover lines above. That felt crowded. When we made the type small, the cover felt too quiet and reminded us of a fashion cover, not a pop-culture cover. Finally, we just made the type huge, and that gave it some energy, and we refined it from there. Putting the type on one side seemed to accentuate the tilt in Douglas's head too. What was Douglas like to work with? Was he open to experimentation? Michael Douglas was extremely accommodating. We asked if he might consider the possibility of shooting in his Manhattan apartment. While we wanted a conceptual studio portrait for the cover, we would also want something incredibly real, up close and intimate, for the inside piece, and we all know that one is always most comfortable and relaxed at home. Would his space be large enough to accommodate at least two lighting setups - one for the cover portrait, the other for intimate environmental shots? Would he be willing to allow a modest crew with the necessary equipment to enter his space for half a day? And, of course, would he be willing to allow Martin to scout the space in advance to make sure that his apartment was even suitable for what we wanted to do? Michael not only understood our idea - he liked it too. And because of that, we were able to collaborate and make pictures.