ANNIE IS ALL DONE!

Unless you all have any critiques, I think Annie is FINISHED! I posted it giant sized so you guys could get a better peek at it.

Annie Oakley, hopefully finished?

I think I've finally got a handle on what I want this series to look like. I shot pictures through the viewfinders of some of my old cameras and then used those pictures as a texture screen for Annie. I'll probably be trying some from my 104 Landcamera and a few others later this evening but for now
Let me know what you think:

Clean, without any texture files

 Ansco

 Brownie

Kiev

Ansco, but mellowed out about 50% from original

Annie Oakley

Here's the tentative Annie Oakley shot. I may still change up the toning and card placement, but it's a pretty solid draft I think. Ideas to improve it? Let me know in the comments.

Dead Deadlines. Double Farts

I may have built my deadlines to be way too tight. I didn't account for the time spent co-running the shop, looking for new work and other personal commitments. I'd love to say that the end of November is a likely finish date but once again, I'm caught in a maelstrom of appointments, birthdays and holidays. I suppose that won't likely ease up until January and the new year is too far off for Tall Tales to wait.


This weekend I will finish Annie Oakley and she's gonna look great. Just you wait.

So here's my update:
*Robert Johnson needs a devil. This is an easy shoot.
*Annie Oakley just needs to be put together. I've got all the pieces, she just needs to be edited.
*Paul Bunyan's background has been photographed but I need to edit it and shoot the big man.
*Johnny Appleseed, John Henry and the others  have not even been started yet. Doublefarts.

Finally making a bit of progress again! Here are the two versions I've got for the Annie Oakley background. Critiques? They were shot across the street from one another in Oroville, California. The mountains in the top frame were taken from 90° to the right.

In my mind, Annie Oakley will be somewhere on the right third of the frame with playing cards either cut in half by her bullets or Aces with a bullet hole in the center will be suspended/falling in the foreground of the frame. Ideas?

Where I'm At

Above is my progression on this photo. #1 is where it all comes from. I had to remove a bunch of stuff from the frame: field workers, light poles, a car far in the distance etc.  #2 is the background after processing. I wanted the background to look similar to a full moon night with some storm clouds. #3 and #4 are the files I built Mr. Johnson from and #5-10 are the pieces of the ring of fire. I dug a trench in the sand, filled it with kindling and then doused with gasoline. I then walked around the ring with the can of gas and shot individual bursts of flame that I could composite together.  #11-13 are the final ring of fire and two different versions I'm stuck on.  

I think this is the version of Robert Johnson I like the best, but I do want to add the haze of smoke around him, maybe bring up the brightness just a bit. He's also going to get moved to the left a bit and then I'll add the devil figure once I've photographed it.

Here is my mock up of what I think this will look like. I don't want a fully embodied devil, but Just a hint. Like how Predator looks when he is invisible. Shimmery with a hint of body details.










I have finished the background plate for Annie Oakley. I need to take a few decks of cards out to the shooting range and blow some holes through them(seems easier than building a fake gunshot hole through cards). Then hopefully next week I can shoot Annie Oakley, as played by Lisa Kislingbury-Anderson.

Tall Tales Brainstorming

I've got my basic themes, posing, some costuming and most of my 'model casting' done and now I'm getting into the meat of this project. Initially I wanted to do all of this on location, but now I'm thinking I might wanna try some of the HDR-Composite type portraits I've been seeing a bit lately.  This would require shooting the background image, then shooting my model on a background(either ChromaKey Green or White) and compositing the two images. There are a few obvious benefits to this approach: greatly increased control over lighting and technical elements and I could theoretically get my models all together, rent a studio for an hour or two and bang out the portraits then fill in the backgrounds as I go.  My concern with this type of portrait is I simply don't have any experience with that kind of work and I've got high hopes for this project so I don't wanna  mess it up!

If my models are willing, I'd like to try both pure location and the composite route. Pecos Bill is my first choice for a composited background, since I'd like to get out to the desert for his shot but I'm not sure if that's an option for him to drive out with me for the day. 

Thoughts guys?