For instance, before coming to Louisville, our very own drama teacher Mr. Dan Mailley, or more commonly known as Mr. Dan, participated in multiple stock photoshoots. Mr. Dan was hired by a company called Print Work who took stock pictures and then sold them to people to use in anything from articles and news broadcasts to company websites.

“I had an agent and it was a paying job. They send you out, and you audition for the shoot like anything else,” said Mr Dan when asked how he got the job.

The audition process is very similar to a modeling job. Similar to modeling agencies, the casting directors focus on the look of people’s hands. This is because they may want the model in the photo to hold an item, making their hands important to the outcome of the photo. The person in the photo is then given multiple different outfits and at least a thousand pictures are taken. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Dan was hired for every stock photo job he auditioned for.

Mr. Dan was only ever paid per day, but the agencies who took the photos could sell them into perpetuity, owning the right to redistribute them forever. Mr Dan’s photo that received the most publicity was the one of him dressed up like a business man who was coughing, frequently speculated about by his students on campus. This photo showed up on Jimmy Kimmel, MSNBC, John Stewart and was also used anytime there was a new infectious disease, such as the bird flu, or more recently spiking in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Dan’s photos from other shoots also appeared in a number of other newspapers, including The Onion.

It has been almost 20 years since the shoot where Mr. Dan took his Business Man Coughing photo, yet it is still iconic to this day. Mr. Dan may not really be a businessman who coughs, but he certainly is a drama teacher who knows how to play any role. He is an actor, but more so, he is a character who brings his own unique experiences to every aspect of his job at Louisville from the way he teaches in the classroom to the way he directs the fall drama.