Toronto, Ont. Sept. 25, 2011: Nigel Richards, 44, From New Zealand, is the only two-time World Scrabble Champion after winning the 2011 title. Here Richards poses with his Scrabble rack mugshot-style, in between games at the Toronto International Scrabble Open and Human vs. Computer Showdown, three weeks before winning the championships in Warsaw, Poland. He is a shy and reclusive man. It took a lot of coersion to get him to pose for this photo.

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My idea was a simple one. Create close-up headshots of some of the top Scrabble players in the world holding Scrabble racks spelling their surname with Scrabble tiles.

The trickiest part was getting some of them to pose during a tournament, when there's often little time between games.

I started this series in 2009 at the Michael Wise Memorial Tournament in Toronto, which attracted a few players representing Canada at the World Scrabble Championships.

I resumed this series at the same event in 2011, which ran concurrently with the Toronto International Scrabble Open and Human vs. Computer Showdown.

Here you'll see Scrabble portraits of former World Scrabble Champions Nigel Richards and former Canadian and World Scrabble Champion Adam Logan.

Then there's the scowling, heavy-metal-fan Jeremy Hildebrand and a the blue-haired wunderkind Jackson Smylie, 13, the youngest participant ever in the Canadian Scrabble Championships (who beat Logan in his first match, no less).

To be continued....