For TIME's recent cover story on stress, Art Director Rudy Hoglund found his cover models on the magazine's staff. After all, Hoglund reasoned, who would know more about stress than dead-line harried reporters and writers?

Viennese painter Gottfried Helnwein, who specializes in exaggerated expressions, was brought to the U.S. to photograph "the typically American look" Hoglund desired.
Hoglund's assistants Dorothy Chapman and Charlotte Quiggle rounded up a dozen TIME staffers to pose for preliminary photographs. "The final painting was a composite based mainly on Associate Editor Jim Kelly," Hoglund says. Kelly thinks the honor "dubious".

Initially, all who were asked to pose were flattered,
"But," says staff writer Alex Taylor, "after being sat down in a chair, having water sprayed on my face, my hair tousled and tie loosened, I asked myself, "What am I doing here?"

"It became a contest of who could look the most stressful," says staff writer Kurt Anderson. "Trying to look stressful became stressful in itself." Reporter-Reasercher Phil Elmer-DeWitt claims "It was a lot of work to scrunch up my face." But for C M & D's Bob Hughes, "Looking stressful came naturally, and my most tense moments I usually look worse."

Everyone wanted to stay anonymous. On a flight to New York Senior Editor Don Morrison struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger who was carrying the stress issue of TIME. "When I mentioned the shoot, the man said, 'I do see a resemblance around your eyes - strain.'"

Kelly has had second thoughts about remaining unknown. "I wonder if I'm justified in asking out Nastassia Kinski? After all, we were both TIME covers."