I came across this photo several weeks/months ago, felt in love with it pretty much immediately. The subject of a sorrowful pensive comedian (clown) is certainly isn’t new, but for me this must be one of the best.
The emptiness of the ‘tall’ back wall, with its bland washed out colour of grey, feels like a perfect amplifier of Mr. Farley’s mood that is so clearly projected from his facial expression.
There is a slight hope in sunlight rushing through the gap in the curtain, behind Chris the wall is unnaturally lustrous. The hanging fag from a mouth that simply just ‘couldn’t bothered’ and the dull gold crown together with a generic white vest was absolutely perfect for a tired mournful king.
Placing Mr. Farley right at the bottom and in the middle of the composition, I could feel the heaviness of anguish that he is carrying upon his shoulders (pushing him down, being swallowed out of the frame), cutting him off just slightly below his chest just forces me to concentrate on the subject even more, no clutter, no other lines to consider, no shadows to draw my focus, no colours to pull me away from the lifelessness objective of the photo.
I believe he died of a drug overdose, I have always loved some... liked most... and didn’t care for a few of his work. I remembered I was shocked when the news broke. I like comedy and I was hoping he was going to make all of us laugh for a lot longer, much longer.
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Source: I think I first discovered this photo on Chive (not sure though), but decided to find the source of the photo, hoping to find the photographer’s name or something , to give it the credit where the credit is due. Decided to Google Image ‘Chris Farley’, it came up on page 11, after a couple more click the trail went cold at reform.lt. The trail went cold here because this site has nothing but photos after photos in one never ending page (love it), couldn’t find a search option after scrolling endlessly for a few minutes I gave up, will try again later :)
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Love this photo: Chris Farley.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Inspirational: Sir Nicholas Winton
Prior to the start of the second world war, Sir Nicholas Winton with an absolute clarity in this foresight, initiated and ran an operation to evacuate children from the Czech Republic who would have surely been sent to the concentration camp, all in all 669 children were saved. All the children travelled by specially charted trains from Prague to London where they were placed with their adopted family. To me this is an absolutely fantastic true story.
The link below will only take you 5 – 10 minutes to read :)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/holocaust-children-honor-sir-nicholas-winton-saved/story?id=8493151
Or you can watch this short VDO (about 9 minutes)
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/internationalus/return_to_slovakia.html
What a great way to end a Sunday… totally not looking forward to a difficult meeting at work tomorrow… :(