Secret agent Jack Bauer has been activated once again, and after only four hours on the job he's already knee-deep in deadly terrorist threats and shadowy government intrigues. The rest of his day is going to be crazy.

It's all part of the fun on the hit Fox TV show 24, which launched its dazzling seventh season this week: The plot this time around sets new marks for twists, turns, and highly-caffeinated action sequences.

For series star Keifer Sutherland, the new season has also been an opportunity to show off some photography skills that he has been nurturing for many years. He and a handful of the show's production staff and executives have been busy documenting the drama that takes place behind the scenes.

Sutherland's photographic compatriots on 24 include executive producer and director Jon Cassar, director of photography Rodney Charters, producer Michael Klick, and unit photographer Kelsey McNeal. The five of them have been shooting stills on set since the show debuted in 2001, but they began looking at their work in earnest while filming 24: Redemption, a two-hour prequel filmed in South Africa that aired last November.

The results were so striking that an exhibition was organized to feature the work. The show, "24: Redemption -- Captured in Africa," was curated by Entertainment Weekly deputy photo director Michael Kochman. Featuring 48 archival prints created by L.A. production company Digital Fusion, the exhibition will be up at the Paley Center for Media in New York through February and March.

In addition, a book featuring images made during the first five seasons of the show is being published. Called 24: Behind the Scenes ((Insight Editions) will be available in a limited edition as well as a trade edition and features a foreword by Sutherland.

As a devoted fan of 24, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sutherland and the show's other photographers. We sat in the Oval Office set at the 24 production facility of in the San Fernando Valley.

MEH: It seems like the cast and crew of 24 have formed their own version of the legendary Group f/64. Maybe f/24 would be a good name for you guys. How did this evolve to the point where you're producing books and exhibitions?

Jon Cassar: A lot of us that are in the film and television business are photographers -- maybe not professional, but avid amateurs. Myself, Michael Klick, and certainly Rodney Charters, our director of photography, are absolute photo hounds. We're so used to showing each other pictures from the set. At one point I thought, "Wow, there are a lot of good photos here," so I put them together into one of those Apple iPhoto books and sent it to Palace Press in the Bay Area. They loved what they saw and decided to make the book 24: Behind the Scenes, incorporating seasons one through five. It was a compilation of images from anyone who had a good photo, though most of the book is made up of photographs by Isabella Vosmikova, who was the set photographer at the time, as well as pictures by Rodney, and me. The pictures are not just behind-the-scenes snapshots or historical documents of what took place over the first five seasons; they had to have artistic merit as photographs.

MEH: How did the "24: Redemption -- Captured in Africa" exhibition come about?

Cassar: FOX loved what we had done with the book and suggested that while we were in Africa we should do more of the same. Since we're all into photography that wasn't a tough assignment.

What's interesting is that it's by people who work on very different aspects of the show. You've got a producer, a DP, a unit photographer, you've got me, the director, and you've got the lead actor -- Kiefer, who created beautiful photos. It was a departure for him because usually when he comes to work, from the second he gets out of his car until he's done for the day, he's pretty well in the game. The only thing he does is play chess. I think the opportunity for Kiefer to do photography was very different in Africa because he didn't have people photographing him like they do here walking around downtown L.A.

Kiefer Sutherland: The thing for me was for six years it was unbelievably inhibiting around here to do photography. You have, in my opinion, some of the most amazing photographers, Rodney and David St. Onge, a gaffer on our show. Obviously Jon and Michael . . . everyone was taking pictures for fun but with such a professional quality. For the first two years our stages were next to a Fry's Electronics and we knew where to find all those guys at lunch. Our whole monitor board just had coupons cut out for this camera and that lens, this adapter, that printer. I didn't really know how involved Michael was until I saw some of his pictures. I was looking at a photo, "Oh my God, that's one of the best pictures I've ever seen," and someone said, "That's Michael's." So for me, I wouldn't dare pick up a camera with this group.

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