Our approach was not to duplicate Nadar's original poses taken in 1854-55, but to update them to reflect our complex contemporary lives: listening to an iPod, chatting on a cellphone, filming a tragic street incident, playing solitaire, eating fast food, taking pain killers, etc. Along with a wide range of emotions from suffering to greed to anger to bravado to “whatever, the series also reflects the uneasy hope and politics of the post-9/11 years.