Fifth and Sixth-generation farmers! Ron Holter and his son.

In early August of 2009, I was sent by the Wegmans Advertising Department to Jefferson, Maryland to photograph for a day at Holterholm Farms, a supplier of milk for Organic Valley.  Established in 1889 by the great-great grandfather of Ron Holter, the 207 acre farm has been a producer of organic dairy products since 2005, and is now run by Ron, his wife Kathy, and their two children.  Accompanying me on the trip was Matt Byham, from Wegmans, who was writing the feature article on dairy suppliers for the Summer 2010 issue of Menu Magazine.

Jersey Cow number 139. She's a good milker!

The morning that Matt and I arrived at the farm was absolutely stunning!  There was enough atmospheric haze, that natural light was just perfect for photography, and it stayed that way for most of the day!  It was hot, though, even early on, and it would only get more so as the day progressed.  Matt and I met with Ron and Kathy Holter and got the lay of the land.  The Holters were making preparations for a visiting group from Wegmans, and while we waited for the group to arrive, Matt and I walked the pastures to photograph the land and cows!  A short while later, Ron and his son joined us in the fields and discussed with us the family farm’s history, the move to organic and sustainable farming processes, the great health benefits of organic foods, and of course, how very important it is to have happy cows!  I could tell, during our time afield with the Holters, that Matt was getting some great material for his article!

Part of the pastureland that I loved so much.

In Ron’s words, he and his family are farming as God has intended it to be.  The Jersey cows of Holterholm Farms dine on a nutritious mix of grasses of different types.  They are free to roam the pastures that are open to them on a given day, and each day, they are milked in a comfortable, cool, open-air parlor that creates a very stress-free environment for them.  The result is healthy, happy, grass-fed cows, and delicious, organic milk that is higher in antioxidants, other nutrients, and Omega-3’s than that which is produced at conventional dairy farms.  The cows are not grain fed, they do not receive hormones or antibiotics, and no persistent pesticides or synthetic fertilizers are used on the farm.  Managed as a seasonal farm, calves are born in February and March of each year, and the cows are milked from March to December.

Following the cows in for milking at the day's end.

This farm had such a wonderful feel to it.  It just seemed that everything worked in this nice, relaxed harmony, and that things were the way they should be.  The land was just beautiful, the cows were healthy, happy, and well looked after, even the cats seemed extremely content!  The Holter family proved to be very gracious hosts, are amazing people to visit with, and had a tremendous passion for educating others about the great benefits of organic farming.  It was obvious from the beginning that these are folks that truly believe in and love what they do, are fully immersed in it, and are more than willing to share what they’ve learned with others.  All of this benefits the consumer, other dairy farmers, and of course, the cows!

The Holter Family, photographed on their farm, August 5, 2009.

One of the many beautiful faces we would meet that day.

Ron Holter describing sustainable pasture management.

Camera:  Canon EOS 1DS Mark 2.

The July, 2010 North American Whitetail cover. On newsstands NOW!

It was back in early November of 2009 that for me, at least, the groundwork for this project began to form.  It was about that time that my friend, Garret Armstrong, of Elite Archery, shared with me pictures that he had just taken in the field of Chris Kiernan’s 2009 Illinois archery buck.  I’m pretty certain that my jaw dropped, and I laughed out loud in amazement when I first saw how truly incredible this deer was!  Back in November, though, I had no idea that I would have the opportunity to photograph the mounted buck for the July 2010 “kickoff” issue of North American Whitetail Magazine!

Chris Kiernan, of Illinois, is a member of the Elite Archery Pro Staff, and has several big whitetail bucks to his credit.  On November 1, 2009, he killed what was to become the pending Illinois State Record for a non-typical whitetail taken with bow and arrow. I was able to meet Chris at the ATA show in Columbus, Ohio in mid-January, and it was at this point that we started to discuss the possibility of doing some studio photography to accompany the field images that Garret had done in November.  Chris was in the early stages of writing his article, exclusively for North American Whitetail.  It was also at this time that I was able to meet and have a conversation with Gordon Whittington, Editor in Chief of the magazine, and begin to understand what types of images they would need for the upcoming article.

The Kiernan Buck as photographed on April 4, 2010.

It wouldn’t actually be until early April, though, that Chris and his lovely wife, Maria, would drive the mounted trophy from Illinois to our studios at Myers Creative Imaging in Rochester, NY.  We had made arrangements a couple of weeks prior to the shoot, and I had previously done some lighting tests with one of Garret Armstrong’s bigger whitetail mounts.  When the Kiernan buck arrived that Saturday morning, we were all set to go.  Once we had the mount arranged on a solid post in the studio, I spent some time with Chris and Garret just looking at the deer.  The antler structure and mass were just incredible.  There were so many details in the antlers that required close examination!  Lots of “Ooooh’s,” “Wow’s,” and “Holy cow’s!” as I recall.  I was blown away seeing the deer up close like this.

With Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts cups in hand, we spent time walking around the mount, looking at it from different perspectives, trying to decide which camera position would ultimately tell the best story of this buck.  The perspective we kept coming back to is the one you see in the image used on the cover.  After shooting some more refined tests, and working on the lighting until we were happy, we proceeded to make the cover photo, and then turned the pedestal at different increments to capture the buck from all angles.  The shape of the buck’s antlers change dramatically when viewed from the sides!  One of the side views we photographed, shown below, accompanies the article in its opening spread.

A stunning view of the whitetail buck's left side.

Several hours after the buck came through the front doors of the studio, he was gently packed back up in the truck, and before the Kiernan’s headed back to Illinois, we headed over to Dinosaur Barbecue for a little celebratory lunch of pulled pork, brisket, and loads of other good stuff!  The Spring day was warm enough that we could sit outdoors at the Dinosaur and overlook the mighty Genesee River as it rushed North to Lake Ontario.  It was a very satisfying way to end a really great day.

The story of Chris and his buck is one of a lifelong passion for deer hunting, of strategy, restraint, persistence, and success.  It’s a really nice read!  I would encourage you to hit up your local newsstand for a copy of North American Whitetail to check it out!

Camera:  Hasselblad H2 with Leaf Aptus 65S Digital back.

The Judge, new for 2010, in a matte black "Ninja" Edition. Extremely Slick!

My New Year holiday weekend was capped off with the completion of photography for Elite Archery’s 2010 Product Catalog.  I’m really excited to get my hands on the final printed piece, because the PDF I saw online today looks just great!  I’ve had a really fantastic time working with Garret Armstrong, the VP of Marketing and Sales for Elite Archery, and have enjoyed spending time getting to know the rest of their team, Maggie Armstrong, Missy and Denny Sharrone, and Pete Crawford, the company President.  It’s both energizing and refreshing to be working with people who believe so deeply in producing high quality products, are dedicated to supporting their customers, and genuinely love what they do.

Elite Archery's GT500, in Anthracite Gray Metallic. Absolutely gorgeous!

The upper limb and Rev cam of the GT500, Anthracite.

Eric Barbehenn, from our shop at Myers Creative Imaging, was the driving force behind the retouching of the images, and preparing them for going to press.  Many hours were spent at the computers in the studio during this post-production process, after the photography was complete.  At our latest estimate, 13 gallons of Starbucks Coffee and 29 pounds of Almond M&M’s were consumed during the entire project.  Amy Millert and Jennifer Morse provided a great deal of help in the studio on our shooting days, and I felt very fortunate to have had them as part of the team!

Elite Archery's One Piece Bow Quiver, in Realtree AP, mounted on a 2010 Judge. Made by Treelimb for Elite Archery.

Some really exciting, new products have been added to Elite Archery’s already solid arsenal of bows for 2010.  Elite’s newest bow, The Judge, is a very sweet looking piece of equipment, featuring an axle to axle length just a whisker under 35 inches, Elite’s new Revolution cams, and a 6 inch brace height.  Also new this year are one and two-piece Treelimb quivers, and a line of 7 and 11 inch stabilizers that are Doinker equipped, and feature a smoke colored acrylic rod that is etched with the Elite Archery logo.  These accessories have been designed in a way that beautifully complements Elite’s bows aesthetically, and they look as though they will perform solidly and effectively as they should.  Other new additions to the product line include a hip quiver and a soft-sided bow case that has to be one of the nicest looking cases I’ve seen!

Efficient Powerhouse! Elite Archery's 2010 Revolution cam!

The catalog went to press today, and will be delivered in time for distribution at Elite Archery’s exhibit booth at the ATA Trade Show in Columbus, Ohio this month.  I’m excited to be flying into Columbus on the 13th and attending the show this year for the first time, and for the opportunity to meet with and show work to new, prospective clients!  Wish me luck!

The Judge, dressed to hunt, in Realtree AP.

Elite Archery's new Field Quiver. Intelligent design and very classy!

Stokerized, Doinker equipped, and laser-etched! Elite's new 11-inch stabilizer, shown here in black, and available in AP and MAX-1. Also available in a 7-inch model!

Camera:  Hasselblad H2, with Leaf Aptus 65S Digital Back.

Daniel Caruso, Sous Chef, in the Test Kitchen of Next Door Bar and Grill.

Last week, our schedule at Myers Creative Imaging exploded into a super busy and exciting week!

One of our coolest projects from the past few days was again, for Wegmans, but this time, the photography would center around the opening of their new restaurant, Next Door Bar and Grill.  Both John and I were asked to head out to the restaurant at different times, and photograph the space, food, and people during the private parties that were being held at the restaurant prior to its opening to the public on December 11.

On Wednesday evening, after our shooting was complete, Wegmans art director Michael Buckley and I were able to sit for some dinner.  Wow!  I can’t wait to go back and spend some time at this restaurant again.  The menu really beckons to be thouroughly explored and enjoyed.  There was a really great energy about the place, the people working there were top notch, and the food was ultra-good!  The spacious bar area offers a fantastic social environment, and the fireplace in the far wall of the main dining room added a warm coziness to the entire place.

I’ll update this post soon, and include a more informative manuscript, for now, I needed to share one of my favorite images from the time I spent at the restaurant on Wednesday.  My portrait of one of the chefs, Daniel Caruso, was made in the Test Kitchen area of the restaurant.  I love his “toughness” in this particular image.  Nobody messes around when Dan’s in the kitchen.

Maybe Dan's not so tough. Yeah, right!

Camera:  Hasselblad H2 with Leaf Aptus 65S Digital Back.

From flowers to soldiers and back again!  The subjects we cover here at Myers Creative Imaging are extremely diverse!  I find there is an interesting rollercoaster of ruggedness and sensitivity that we experience during the course of our work week!

I am creating this particular post on the evening of December 13, and the holiday theme seems fitting.  The day the photography was done for the project, though, was a very different story.  Summer.  Hot.  Humid.  Holiday?  I think not!  It’s incredible to me that the flowers didn’t wilt that day!

Similar to the Wegmans Fall Floral project,  this series illustrates what the florists at Wegmans stores have created for shoppers to bring into their homes for the Winter holidays.

Working with art director, Michael Buckley, of  Wegmans Advertising, we set out to create a body of images to be used in an in-store display, promoting these holiday floral arrangements.  We were to shoot the arrangements themselves on location one day, and then photograph the design elements in the studio on the next.  Michael had reviewed the homes that our production coordinator, Heather, had scouted for our location files, and had selected the perfect one for the project.  It was one of those homes where you go in with all this equipment and gear, and have to be super-careful not to scratch something!  I don’t usually get too nervous about that until we have to start moving the furniture around.  This was one of those days that Michael wanted us to move lots of furniture, lamps, and delicate glass things around.  Thankfully, nothing was broken, scratched, soiled, or otherwise maimed.  We did good.

My friend and freelance photography assistant, Amy, who had HALO jumped with me for the previous, covert-operations project, was on-scene with Michael and me today.  It was a real “Power-Team” we had working on these flowers!  The house lended itself very nicely to the “holiday” feel that we were trying to convey, and we were all really pleased with our images from the day!  The next day in the studio was a fun one, too!  We worked the design elements used in the floral arrangements into several different still-lifes that would be used in the collage on the in-store displays.

Camera:  Hasselblad H2 and CF 132 Digital Back.

Back in the latter part of August, the call came from Wegmans for us to fulfill their need for some new photography that would help to illustrate their Floral Department’s seasonal offerings.  The concept was to create a series of cohesive images, both of the arrangements and bouquets developed by the Wegmans florists, and also to build some still-life imagery using the design components that would be incorporated into the arrangements themselves.

The end result would be a large, in-store display that would utilize a collage of images,  illustrating the complete arrangements that the consumer could purchase, as well as the design elements that could be used to create arrangements driven by a customer’s own vision.  The project would include a day of location photography at Wegmans Organic Test Farm, and a day of studio still-lifes.  The Organic Farm was chosen for its rustic environment, which should lend itself well to complement the floral arrangements with an “Autumn” or “Harvest” flavor.

Spending time of the Wegmans Organic Test Farm is one of my favorite things, so I was really excited for another opportunity to shoot there.  The weather, unfortunately, wasn’t cooperating as nicely as we had hoped.  The forecast was for a heavy, gray day with drizzle and rain.  Not optimal conditions for photographing flowers outdoors.  Fortunately, our bag of tricks at Myers Creative Imaging included a 12 foot square canopy tent for just such an occasion.  The tent was deployed at 7:00 am, and our day began, creativity being boosted by an earlier stop at the Canandaigua Starbucks.  We provided our own version of “sunlight” with our Profoto strobe kit, softboxes and scrims.

I was in the company of Michael Buckley, a Wegmans art director, and Jenn Morse, my assistant for the project.  We moved our tent around three or four times to the different spots we had chosen, and decided to keep the laptop set up in the greenhouse.  Jenn would run the CF cards in from the tent and load them in the laptop for us to inspect.  Despite the gloom of the day, I felt that we created some vibrant, energetic images!  Our good luck held all day, and it didn’t rain too hard until the truck was halfway packed at the end of the day!  One of the day’s high points was Jenn’s lunchtime run to Casa Italiana, located on Parrish Street in Canandaigua, to pick up some truly excellent subs.  Italian Assorted, forget about it!

Camera:  Canon EOS 1DS Mark 3.

The final, "Stage Four" image after Eric's hard work!

One of the very rewarding aspects of my job at Myers Creative Imaging is that I get to work with very talented and dedicated people every single day.  We have a staff of six people at the studio, each excellent at what they do, who work well together in servicing our clients, and in supporting each other at the same time!  Alright, enough of the mushy stuff.

I’m taking this opportunity to show off Eric Barbehenn’s talents a little bit.  Eric is sometimes known by us, affectionately, as “the guy behind the wall,”  and might not often be seen, but is responsible for many great things!  Eric is the full time digital image retouching artist that we have on staff.  Of course he manages other things around the studio, too, but retouching is really his thing!

Often times, in the professional photography world, the role of the retoucher becomes a key factor in the realization of an art director’s or photographer’s vision.  Sometimes, only so much can be done “in camera” by the photographer, and it’s up to people like Eric to take the reins and bring the image to a new level.

In this particular case, Eric had done some work on an image that I had created back in the winter months for Harris Corporation.  The scenario I had shot in January had depicted emergency first responders “on the scene,” and would be used in trade magazines to advertise the encrypted radio communications systems that Harris engineers and manufactures here in Rochester.

Eric had spent some time playing around with some tone mapping techniques recently, and seemed to think that this image could lend some interesting results.  He felt that the original image, while very nice, could be pushed to carry a far more dramatic visual message that spoke of the often harsh and difficult conditions that first responders and their equipment are subjected to.

Without giving away Eric’s detailed secrets, I can walk you through the basics:

Stage One, the image in its original state, straight off the camera.

Right off the camera, the Stage One image.

Stage Two, some real boosts in contrast, especially in the shadow end, and some light falloff around the perimeter occurs.

Stage Two.

Stage Three, we see a further contrast push, as well as some selective desaturation.

Stage Three.

Now pay attention to the image shown at the beginning of this post, because Stage Four gets really cool!  Eric made it snow!  Now, he hadn’t merely selected snow from another image and layered it in to the existing one.  He actually created it from nothing and succeeded in making it look real and believable!

What a great result, and super example of image enhancement!

Camera: Canon EOS 1DS Mk 3.

I got together with my good friend, Matt Smythe this morning to do some photography of him in one of my deer hunting stands in Canandaigua.  It was an absolutely stunning Spring morning!  I picked him up at 7:00 and headed over the hill to the property I hunt during archery season.  We saw countless Canada Geese, and probably a dozen deer along our way.  It made us wish we were heading out to hunt instead!

I had gone to this location the previous weekend to plan the shot, choose the perspective, and set up my twenty foot climbing stick ahead of time. That accomplished, all we would have to do was find the right morning, get out there and execute the shot.  We didn’t have a great deal of time this morning, because I wanted to have the sun low in the sky and behind Matt.  He also had commitments later that involved kids, birthday cake and bowling!  Fortunately for me, he was gracious enough to carve out some time to get out in the woods first!

Everything came together pretty smoothly.  I used my Tree Saddle to get up a little higher than Matt was, and standing on top of the climbing stick, was able to move around some to make some subtle changes in perspective.

After I felt we had accomplished all I had hoped to, we packed up the gear, hiked back to the truck, and did some quick test shots in a couple different locations I plan to use soon.

I got Matt dropped off at his place on schedule, visited with his family for a little bit, and headed back to the woods to walk around for a while and look for shed antlers.

I really hated to leave to come back to the city this afternoon!  By the way, Matt, next time, we’ll go out for a proper breakfast afterward!

A huge thank you to Mark Bibbens for making his land accessible for my shoots!

Camera: Canon EOS 1DS Mk 3.

Matt photographed me in the Tree Saddle during a break in the action.

With the help of some very good friends, a 16 page, Bowhunting-themed booklet has come off the printing presses of Canfield and Tack, and will begin circulation immediately. The booklet, titled “Seasons,” is a self-promotion piece that will be sent to creatives associated with hunting and outdoor clothing and equipment manufacturers.

For their tremendous dedication to the project, and their beautiful work, I owe Rachel Spence and Matt Smythe a great deal of thanks. I think that both Rachel’s design sense and Matt’s writing complement and support the images wonderfully. The two are a real pleasure to work with. I’m really fortunate to have them on my team!

I’d also like to take a moment to give a HUGE “Thank You!” to the people in the photographs and behind the scenes – Brian Flaherty, Mike Marini, Paul Shaver, Tige Noni, Matt Smythe, Besayda Soto, Lisa Nasca, Dan Hare and his family, Dennis Minoli and Jamie Crosier.

Special thanks to Marcia and Ben Adams of Creekwood Archery, Stephanie Snow for my cool logo, and also to Willie Osterman and Michelle Adragna for providing some beautiful locations!

Cameras: Canon Powershot Pro S1 (self portrait.) Canon EOS 1DS Mk 2 and 3 (bowhunting project.)

I would also like to thank my good friends and co-workers at John Myers Photography and Myers Imaging Team for their continued love and support. John, Linda, Heather, Kathy and Eric – You guys rock!

The eve of a New Year is traditionally a time for establishing resolutions and setting goals for future achievement. One of my biggest goals for 2009, which this website will help to attain, is to gain new clients who have a need for great photography of people, food and products.

Another, more focused goal, is to create great images for new clients whose companies manufacture outdoor clothing and equipment, especially that which is related to hunting.

Having the opportunity to set such goals is something that I’m very thankful for, and I’m looking forward to all the possibilities that are ahead.

My intent is to use this blog to help viewers see a little further inside the workings of my photography, and to try and keep the whole website package fresh and interesting! Thanks for checking it out!