Driving back to Edmonton, I usually put on The Ricky Gervais show. It kills 2 hours of the 3 hour drive and makes me burst out laughing, probably looking like a mental case to other drivers.

I was listening to season two of the podcast and one of the sent in questions for Karl asked him what he thought about multiple dimensions. Of course the Elephant Man was brought up and Karl asked "Was he [Merrick] alright but just in the wrong dimension?"
I of course laughed, but it's a good point if you believe in multiple dimensions.

Figured I'd do a little drawing to match.

Though, this also reminds me of one of the most amazing West End shows I saw in London a few years ago, which was The Elephant Man. It played at the Whitehall Theatre and there was maybe 60 seats in that small venue. The actor who played Merrick [Marc Pickering] had no makeup at all, just the walk and his way of speaking.

It's hard to explain but I was in tears for some of it. Though I suppose it's easier for such a thing to happen when you're 5 feet away from the action.

The final image for an open project that must have complex lighting. My good friend RT was a very good model.

This image came about after a lighting demo which used the same technique as Jill Greenberg, the photographer known for those crying baby photos. I think they are very funny (though they are probably not intended to be) and wanted to extend it into the adult world.

Adults don't usually express emotions so openly as children. We are much more subtle the majority of the time. Even though this is staged I think the anguish and frustration comes across very well.

I also have never used 5 lights in a shot before. I much prefer natural light or the simplest lighting possible. It was a really nice challenge to try and get 5 lamps to work together to achieve this shot.

If you read my <a href="http://jamieobviously.wordpress.com/" rel="nofollow">blog</a> you will have seen the image that one of my teachers set up using 4 strobe lamps and a ring flash. This image was trying to duplicate that set up without the ring flash as my school does not own one.

There is one lamp on a boom above and behind. Two kicker lights on either side which also bounce off two large bounce cards an off camera flash with a bounce card in front of and below for a little fill and a hot lamp for pupil dilation (even though not utilized in this particular shot.) A large roll of yellow paper was used for the backdrop.

There is a decent amount of editing done to this image. The strobe lights didn't have enough power to overcome the hot lamp so it was very warm. Saturation on the cardi and face were taken down. Colour on the background pumped up just a bit.

Critique:
The colour really frames the subject.
Nice gradient pushing the focal point to the centre.
Muted wardrobe helps to get rid of the models body drawing more attention to the face.
The focal point IS his face.
Yellow really helps the anguish/frustration/man who forgot about his taxes. Another colour such as red would change the mood to anger or violence.

I'm really enjoying colouring with the tablet.

This is Ricky Gervais in about 1983 when he was in a band called Seona Dancing. Every time I think of New Romantic, which was a fashion style at the time, I think of really bright colours like pink and yellow. I'm not exactly sure what New Romantic was to be honest, apart from ghastly suits and makeup.