EVAN: "Handsome or Funny" Is His Rule for Picking Photos, After Turning Himself Into a Birthday Candle

"It would be nice to be both, but it isn't easy to look handsome when you're being really funny," artist EVAN said as he explained how he picks photos after a birthday shoot in which he posed as a candle on a cake.

The behind-the-scenes footage was released on his YouTube channel, Sid:E. EVAN visited a photo studio to mark his birthday.

His rule: handsome or funny

After the shoot, EVAN checked the results himself and chose the pictures. He said his first conditions were that his face must not be too distorted and his posture must be well corrected. "You have to be either handsome or funny," he said, adding the line about doing both that made the room laugh.

EVAN thanked the director team who led the shoot and spoke warmly to fans celebrating his birthday. "I expect the EVERs to celebrate my birthday a lot," he said. "I shot these thinking of the EVERs, so please look forward to the photos that go up on my birthday."

A face on a cake, a body held stiff

The shoot went beyond ordinary portraits. It was planned around a concept of compositing a person into an image to create an unusual mood. At its core was a composite in which EVAN's face stood in for a candle on a cake. The director team decided to place his face at the center and build the composite against a backdrop that looked like chocolate rain, or a Windows-style background. EVAN added the idea of "if you became food from the sky" and went along with a setup meant to feel like a jelly tower.

To capture the nature of a candle, EVAN deliberately kept his body stiff and rigid. At the director's request he acted out a range of moods, from trying to look cool to a carefree expression to a celebratory shout of "I love myself." To convey the candle image, he repeatedly shifted from a blank face to a bright smile.

Source: EVAN (YouTube)