MisAdventures of Mike Perrault

Annie Oakley, hopefully finished?

2012-02-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-09-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

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?

More Tall Tales

2011-06-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

Tall Tales Update: I've found the person that is going to play Annie Oakley. I'd decided I wanted a picture of her shooting cards(one of her famous tricks) and wanted her framed by cards with bullet holes through them and I found a drawing where the artist had the same idea! So I'm gonna try to recreate this picture(and some others of Oakley). What do you think?

Tall Tales

2011-06-10T01:19:00.000-07:00

The Tall Tales project is finally getting some legs. I've found people to play Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, Pecos Bill(who may also know a John Henry) and I have a line on John Dillinger and Calamity Jane as well. I'm still looking for a Casey Jones(and a rail car to shoot that one on!) so if you know of someone who fits that bill, please let me know. The portraits are gonna be stylized, environmental portraits and probably full body length. These stories, both real and fictional, are illustrative of a time before the magic died in America: When great stories could be made and told. When minnows are made into marine behemoths not only is there a momentary uptick in the pulse of any who are lucky enough to hear the story, there is an extra expectation tacked on. An expectation that there is greatness all around us if we're plucky enough to find it.

Christina Cano

2011-06-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

I took some headshots for my friend Christina Cano recently. Any critique?

Timbers game

2011-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to shoot for my former Oregon Daily Emerald colleague, Kevin Hudson and Portland's fanciest soccer publication PortlandMLSpress.com here are a few of my pictures from the game.

Olives with Burl Mostul

2011-05-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to photograph a story for Willamette Week recently(here: The Olive Gardener). The story was focused on Burl Mostul's Oregon City nursery, Rare Plant Research. There you can find multiple species of olive trees and the castle like home he and his wife built a few years ago. Here is one of my favorites from the shoot, a blooming olive tree.

Mission Statement from a 19-Year Old Me

2011-01-29T14:00:00.001-08:00

I just found this again. Cheesy but I like the way I was thinking then!

"So here i am. Here are some of my photos, and then i guess some of my failures. I'm nineteen years old, and i've been pretty seriously into photo for the last 6 years of my life. I built my darkroom when i was in the 8th grade, and have freelanced for newspapers. I want to be able to put one of my prints up and have no regrets, no thoughts of well that could be changed. I want to make a perfect photograph. I can't do it yet, but it'll come. I promise."

What does 1% look like?

2011-01-06T00:37:00.000-08:00

Due to my apparently chronic unemployment, I'm jonesing for a new project. That new project is going to be a portrait project that hopefully will be a statistically accurate(according to the 2000 census) slice of Oregon City shown in portraits. I'm going to have portrait events where people can stop by and have some photos made as well as scheduling some portraits of specific people I want to photograph.

I'm hoping to have my first 1% portrait done this week.

Here are my overall numbers I want to hit

1% = 257 people

Under 5: 21
5-18 years old: 48
18-65 years old: 162
65 and over: 26
Female:131
Male:126
White: 236
Black:15
American Indian: 3
Asian: 3
Hispanic: 13

I found out Santa isn't real this year

2010-12-19T23:46:00.000-08:00

Here is my first edit of my 2010 Santacon shoot. I was only there for about an hour. Maybe. I haven't done hardly any processing to these. I still want to pick my favorites first. Do you have any you like in particular?

Tech: one sb-600 in a 4x8" 'softbox' attachment.

2010-11-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't been shooting anything lately. That needs to change. I am in a rut though and I don't know how to break it. I've never had one this bad. Maybe it's the short, dark days that are getting to me? Who knows. This week, I'm going to make a concerted effort to shoot every day. Even if it's crap. I've got to get back into the habit.

Gogol Bordello, Portland

2010-10-20T02:50:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the Gogol Bordello show in Portland. Writeup will come soon.

Cypress

2010-10-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

Just under the cliffs and north of the elevator you'll find Cypress, sometimes Aegean, sometimes Indian and sometimes just “white bread”.

Oregon City is not known for its messianic draw for foodies, but bear with me, there is good food here. Even guys in Gett'r Done shirts want to eat well occasionally. To do that in Oregon City it seems you're left with pitifully slim pickings. Cypress, on 820 Main St., in the downtown area of Oregon City is one of the rare places you'll find worth eating at.

Owner Kay Houdroge describes the two and a half year old Cypress as a “niche restaurant with great food” and I suppose under the lens of Oregon City 'niche' is correct, as any semi-ethnic food here certainly will draw some extra attention after seeing only mediocre Mexican and awful Chinese on the 'not fast food menu'. I hesitate to call Cypress an 'ethnic restaurant' simply because the (delicious) options on the menu vary so widely it certainly does not hail from a specific gastro-tradition.

The feta and olives appetizer($5.50) came with sliced cucumber and tomato as well and, well...it wasn't anything exciting. The produce certainly wasn't as fresh as it could have been, but it was a nice snack before the entrees came out.

For an entree I ordered Chicken Coco($8.75) The Coco is code for coconut chicken curry and it is served in a small bowl with fluffy sumac spiced rice and a basket of warm pita. Presentation is not the focus here. However Houdroge(who is also the cook) does focus on making everything absolutely delicious. The curry, while a little salty, played nicely with the sumac spiced rice. The curry could be improved by having something other than just meat in the sauce, maybe some vegetables here and there would pick it up just a bit.

The service was absolutely impeccable at Cypress. I was there at the end of the lunch rush so it wasn't terribly busy but it was steady enough that Houdroge would have been absolutely within his rights to be behind given that he was the only cook and waiter on staff.

My only regret from the trip out to Cypress was that I did not order anything from their full bar. $4 cocktails and great food? Sign me up.

If you're headed south, definitely stop in at Cypress.

820 Main St
Oregon City, OR 97045

(503) 387-5914

Hours:

Mon-Thu 11 am - 9 pm

Fri 11 am - 10 pm
Sat 5 pm - 10 pm

Other similar restaurants you should try soon.

Swagat

(503) 766-3015

2074 NW Lovejoy St
Portland, OR 97209

Bombay Cricket Club

(503) 231-0740

1925 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214

Mum's Kitchen

(503) 287-0696‎

3441 N Vancouver Ave, Portland, OR‎

Bucket List, because I am a copy cat.

2010-10-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

After reading Lisa Kislingbury-Anderson's Bucket List, I thought I would write up my own. But I'm gonna do mine a bit different.

By October 2011 I would like to:

Have a job that makes me happy, hopefully at a newspaper or another publication.
Live in my own house.
Have traveled to another country.
Be able to wake up knowing that I will think creatively today

By October 2020:

Traveled to at least nine countries I have not been to before.
Had children
Own a home
Met a really smart robot
See polar bears in the Arctic which I hope will still exist

After that:

Run for public office and win
Own a magazine that I am proud of.
Teach

Portland Alterego Society: CEASEFIRE!

2010-10-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

I took some portraits at the Portland Alterego Society's annual Ceasefire party which benefits p:ear. Here are some of the portraits. I'd love to hear what you think!

Fashion Week Hullaballoo!

2010-10-08T01:20:00.000-07:00

I've only been shooting Fashion Week for two days but so far I am very excited about my take. I like this one a lot. What do you think of it?

I am even more excited about some of the other great photographers I've met and I really look forward to getting to know both Portland's photographers and the photography scene here a bit better. It is about time.

Daytrip to Maryhill

2010-09-29T19:28:00.001-07:00

(Above): I'm always amazed when I see Mt. Hood. I don't get to see it from this side very often though. This was taken somewhere near Lyle, Oregon.

(Above): Me looking dashing.

My girlfriend Shannon after we were done at the museum and stopped in at the Stonehenge War Memorial.

Rudy Fernandez.

2010-09-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

I photographed Blazers Media Day for Willamette Week on Monday and I met some great photographers. I'm also pretty happy with the photos I made given the circumstances. Each player had their own table and the press could move from table to table. Unfortunately this pretty much limited what each of us could do. I miss the U of O's basketball media days where we could take players around Mac Court for different poses etc. That was great.

You can see the story at the Willamette Week(here)

All American Classics

2010-09-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here are a few from my most recent trip out to All American Classics in Vancouver, Washington. I think I'm gonna go back and make some portraits of a few of the guys working there. To get into the yard, you walk past a sign that reads "Cemetary".

First Post in a while!

2010-09-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

After a couple of hours spent in the parking lot of a Troutdale Walmart, my brother finally found the culprit of some wacky mechanical errors.

I'm late, I'm late to a very important date!

2010-01-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

Lately my focus has been on finding a job in a newspaper. Anywhere. I could likely be anywhere in the country in 3 days, ready to work. Because I've been so distracted with finding work, I haven't been making any new work. This is a problem. So with that in mind I'm going to start work on a series of portraits focused on Oregon City. I want it to act as a visual census of who is in Oregon's first capitol, what their wearing, how they smile, what they do at their job or how they're going about finding a job. The first round of shooting begins today with a simple goal. I want one take-away portrait and a quick five minute interview. This first round of portraits will be environmental, full body pictures. Both enviro and full body are difficult for me and I need to get into the habit of shooting full length. Each portrait will be accompanied by a video interview where (hopefully) the subject will talk about Oregon City, what they do, where they're from, family, what they do for fun and a quick note on religious and political affiliation.

I'm still not sold on the second round. Right now I'm envisioning a formal portrait with big soft light and an army green backdrop. Simple lights, 45* pose. I don't want to directly copy Dan Winters but his stuff just looks so damn good. Also, I think I might be able to get my hands on some gold/brass colored velvet curtains which could be a cool background. I want these to look like the photo equivalent of old formal painted portraits.

But I need to get out and shoot one portrait today. Just one today and then another tomorrow and the day after that. Game on.

2009-11-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

I need to find some work. I've been done at Willamette Week for about a week and a half now and I'm going bonkers. I'm working on a post-WW wrap up post. Hopefully that will be up in a few days.

I'm hoping to work on a new project soon at a model train shop. Should be some interesting photos I think. I'll keep you posted.

First Runway Show: Some favorites

2009-09-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

Wehrmacht

2009-09-29T16:05:00.001-07:00

These guys were really a good time to shoot. One AB800 camera right is lighting most of the shot(and building in that nice reflection in the wood paneling in the background) with an sb600 adding some fill. They were not at all what I'd expected from the band who first coined the term "speed metal"

GreenPeas

2009-08-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

I had an assignment to shoot some panhandlers for a story that was talkinig about a proposed city ordinance that would make aggressive panhandling illegal. This would also include some canvassers. Greenpeace was mentioned so I sought out a GreenPeace canvasser. His name was Brent and it turns out that Greenpeace has a policy against allowing their employees to be in a photo unless otherwise authorized by Greenpeace. So this kid got fired because of my photo. Dang. I felt awful. Today they reversed their decision. I get the sinking suspicion in might be because the WW was asking around about it and they didn't want the bad PR.

Shooting Monkeys

2009-08-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

Then Monday morning I was off shooting monkeys. They've got about 4200 macaques of different species. Pretty cool. I had a really hard time shooting anything that didn't look like a Simian Auschwitz photo and that's really unfortunate. Aside from the medical testing, these little guys seem to be really well taken care of. Also we had to stay about 15-20 feet away from the cages so we didn't infect them with Tuberculosis or other pathogens, assuming we were carriers.

What a wonderful day in the neighborhood....

2009-08-21T15:45:00.000-07:00

This week started off with a pretty fun story. I shot a soap box derby team getting ready for their race(which happens this Saturday on Mt. Tabor. I'll be there shooting, don't you worry your pretty little head over that!). The team name is Mother Pluckers. Here are some of my photos.

For the above portrait I have a single monolight(AB800) on camera right firing at full power to overpower the harsh 1pm sunlight.

2009-08-09T01:31:00.001-07:00

Busted Fareless Square

2009-08-05T12:06:00.001-07:00

Last week I was assigned to shoot some photos featuring Busted magazine, which shows mugshots from around the Portland area(but it's also a national publication so you can find the convicts wherever you are!). Initially kind of a boring assignment right? Brittany Moody(a design intern at WW) initially posed for some 'anonymous reader' pictures but I needed something more. I asked a few different people to pose like they were reading it. I also put it into a newsstand at the Lovejoy Market. I like this one the best(and I'm glad the ADs did too). His name is Casey Enns and he was waiting for the street car when I showed up. It was about 101 degrees that day, terrible weather and light. I think this was probably around 1-2pm. I was trying to focus on the magazine so I hit it with a full power burst from my sb-600 on hi-speed sync and then brought the ambient down, this also really brought out the colors in his shirt and the sky which I'm stoked for. I wish this would have run in color but it looks pretty good in BW too. For what could have been a scanned in copy of Busted, I think this adds something to the page even in BW. It might be posed and maybe not the most journalistic photo, but essentially Casey is a prop for the real subject of the photo and so in that way I'm okay with posing him.

Yesterday, I was running a bit late and got a call from Tom Humphrey saying they had a story for me to shoot if I wanted. It was about how Tri-Met is going to cut buses from the. Fareless Square Service, beginning in January(here's the story). Again, not a terribly exciting visual right? I got my bread and butter shot of two buses and a bicycle, with heavy pedestrian traffic somewhere on 5th. It would've told the story just fine, but didn't really add anything visually. Then I got some panning photos of buses, but they were just bus pictures kinda neat but nothing terribly special. I had 10 minutes to get the shot I wanted and walk 8 blocks back to my car before the parking meter expired. I was looking for a parking structure that had windows looking out over 5th or 6th Avenue, easy. But the view from the street couldn't be obscured by trees, ruh roh this might be a bit more difficult. I found a decent spot at the Metropolitan Garage on 5th and Taylor, 6 floors up, with lots of windows and a really cool old elevator with a gate instead of the solid doors so you can see the inside of the elevator shaft as you're going up.

I got up there and I had my tripod but it wasn't able to lean far enough out over the ledge to get the view I wanted so I super clamped the camera to the railing (initially I wanted to use ND gels to allow for a blur in the people, buses, cars and keep all the buildings and signs sharp). I thought the ND blurred shots were pretty cool and showed the story better than an image with a sharp bus. I thought that blurring out the busses into soft blobs(still very recognizable blobs) would underline the fact that something about downtown bus service is changing.

Either way though, I was very happy to try some high angle/aerial stuff. I don't know why but I love aerial photos. Even from this low height, but if I could have been another 100 feet in the air, directly above the streets/buses, everything that would have been amazing. I really hope my kite is able to lift this my video camera when the winds pick up this fall. It feels a bit lighter than the P&S camera I was using(which was way way way too heavy for this kite).

Gonna try to do a multimedia story on Chess players this weekend and hopefully will also get some athlete portraits done as well!

Mike De Bee, Street Roots Vendor Protests

2009-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

This is Mike De Bee, he's a (now former) Street Roots vendor protesting a column in Street Roots by the executive director that he feels implies all SR vendors are using the money earned to feed drug and alcohol addictions.

Mike De Bee is also the subject of my first assignment at the Willamette Week. It had been nearly a month since I'd been out shooting photos for a publication. I forgot how great it felt to walk up to a perfect stranger, shake their hand and introduce myself as a photographer from a publication.

I like some of the other pictures from this shoot better. But this one has all of the elements of this story, so I understand why they used it. It just feels a little contrived. Sometimes portraits are destined to have that feeling though.

For this photo, I used a 18-70mm Nikon on the wide end with my D80 set to 100 ISO and the shutter cranked up fast. There is also a sb-600(held by my fantastic colleague Katie Litvin) most likely at full or half power with a 1/4 CTO gel shooting through a stofen cap. Unfortunately my sb-600 is stuck, zoomed out to 24mm so I've got to crank the power up high especially when I'm using the high-speed sync mode.

Tour De Coop: Ruh Roh(think Scooby Doo)

2009-07-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna try to find another editing program and redo the Tour De Coop video. I don't think the video is strong enough to support all the other errors--impossibly fast transitions, no sound on the stills, bad audio editing on the video. imovie did as best it could, but I need more. I'm really excited for the concept/gimmick used in the TDC video with the walking flipbook transitions between the coops and I think it'd be a really strong piece if I were able to fix the above mistakes. I have strong audio(from the Zoom H2), I've got some decent nat sound but I'm unable to use this additional content with imovie.

I'm starting to think that this part, the "good enough is never acceptable"part is gonna be the death of me. Or maybe it'll be the reason I'm gonna be just fine? I've got a stack of job listings I have to apply for today. I hope one of them comes through.

Tour De Coop

2009-07-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

I shot the Tour De Coop this weekend. Portland's urban farmers opened their doors and coops to the public on Saturday. Here is what I found:

This is the first project I did on my Kodak Zi6 as well as my first time using imovie. I really miss Final Cut Pro.

New Toys! Kodak Zi6

2009-07-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

I really should get going out to a shoot, but it's a lazy Saturday. I'm going to be shooting Tour de Coop today, a walking tour of local urban chicken owners/enthusiasts/farmers and their coops! I'll be doing some Avedon'esque portraits of both the chickens and their owners which will later be turned into diptychs. I'll also be shooting video on my new Kodak Zi6
(with supplementary audio from a Zoom H2). I'm hoping to get some good clean audio/video b-roll of the chickens to fill the whole thing out. Also, if I could get the owners to introduce themselves and the chickens as well as do their rendition their chicken's 'voice'(clucks etc) I would be pretty dang happy with my take.

First photos published in the Willamette Week

2009-07-22T15:49:00.001-07:00

These are my first four published photos I've done at the Willamette Week. They're all for the Best of Portland edition and should be on the racks until the 28th or 29th I think. Let me know what you think!

I'm still working on the formatting with Blogger. Sorry if things are a little jumbled right now

(Above): This is Randy Archer, he's the owner of Baseball Cards and More on 120th and Stark. He opened it in the early 80's. He's not quite sure how many cards he has, but somewhere in the millions. Floor to ceiling is cards. He's showing off four of his favorites that he has at the shop. I had one speedlight set on 1/4 power(I think) and 200 ISO at about a 15th of a second in this shot. The flash had a lumiquest bounce card on it.

Below is Dr. Al Torres of Portland Industrial and Travel medicine. The section name was jokingly "The Best Place In Portland to Get Shot", so I figured I should call their bluff. Syringes have a really nice kind of icon power to them, but because of that they're also a little much sometimes. Initially we tried a small syringe and that shot didn't work, the one he's holding was pretty much only done as a joke but it's more legible than with the small syringe. Dr. Torres thought this was very funny and so do I.

Next is Julio, who the people at the Audubon Society have come to find is actually a female. Who knew? She's 9 years old and has been living at the Portland facility for 4 years now. I showed up to the shoot with big ideas, quickly my Nikon D80 decided it had other plans and an SD card broke off in the slot. Damn. The springs were stuck and wouldn't hold onto a memory card so I had to hold it in place. I had a 50mm 1.8 on, set to 1.8 at 400 iSO and I'm pretty sure 1/90th of a second.

This is Josh Killingsworth, he owns A Rose and a Song(link). For about $90 he'll deliver a dozen roses and a song. It was about 100 degrees today, I felt bad for Josh in that suit coat. But I had a good time on the shoot. Again, there's an sb-600 with the lumiquest bounce card. Directly to camera left. Unfortunately you can see the flare in there. I wish I'd added a 1/4 CTO gel to the flash so he wasn't so pale/ghosty.

2008-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

My flight leaves for Korea in 24 hours.

This is my first real blog. I'll post as regularly as I can with photos and hopefully some audio too from my snazzy new recorder.

All my gear is packed and other than picking up some reading material, I'm ready to adventure!