Tag Archives: personal work

Hammond Lumber Company

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As I recently posted,   I have begun my new series,  The American Worker Project which will be an ongoing project as we travel around the country,  documenting the American Worker.      I chose to start this adventure and visual assignment in my home town in Belgrade Maine.      As many of you know I grew up in Maine and it is where we spend the better portion of each summer for the last 14 years when not off on assignment somewhere.

I figure what better place to start than the area you know best.      I chose Hammond Lumber Company because it is a classic example of a good old fashioned family business with its heart and soul wrapped firmly in the people that work there.    It also helps that I am friends from back in our childhood days with one of the principles of the company.

Hammond Lumber is a company that was started back in the early 50’s by Skip Hammond with only $50 and a dream.     It has been a staple in the town and now around the entire state of Maine ever since.      For over 60 years they have grown from a small mill with 3 employees including Skip himself to a large company with 13 stores and counting with many many loyal employees,  many of whom have worked there for 20 – 30 years or more.      Hammond Lumber is one of those special kind of businesses where you  know you are much more to them than just a number.    They offer personal service that is rare these days,   all at a fair price.

I’d like to thank Mike Hammond and the other great folks at Hammond for giving me cart blanche and basically unrestricted access to film in their main saw mill.    Over the coarse of 3 days we shot a ton of video footage and stills of their hard working employees.

Here are just a few images from the shoot.     Click here or on any of the images to see a larger gallery of images posted to my website.

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Update from the Road

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Update from the Barrett camp…

Well we’ve been at it about almost 2 months and it seems like a blur.   I have been non stop shooting one project after another.  We’ve been so busy I have not had time to update this blog but will be adding new stuff soon. If you’ve been following along on Facebook or Instagram you have no doubt seen my steady stream of teaser iPhone photos.     This upcoming week I am actually trying to schedule some down time to work on processing, finishing work and color grading on a backlog of finished shots and will be posting them to my blog and as well to the various social media channels soon.     We also have a ton of video that hopefully will make it to the editor in the coming month to expand my reel.

Just a quick recap of where we’ve been and what I’ve been shooting.    We started our journey by heading to Maine to shoot in the remaining nice fall weather.  Immediate plans have had me shooting everything from flyfishing with fishing guide Mike Guarino of Maine Wilderness Tours in the Kennebec River  for Maine Tourism type stuff,   Shooting on a freezing 28 degree day on a lobster boat, the “F/V Pud Lee”  with Captain Patrick and his sister Sharlene Grant,  a couple of hard working  Lobster Fishermen.    I also spent several days shooting a reportage documentary style people shoot in the saw mill at Hammond Lumber in Belgrade Maine,  shooting both stills and video.    This project also marks the start of a series that I am working on called  “The American Worker Project”  where we will be shooting real people in real jobs all over the country.      Very Heart of America kind of stuff.   It’s a great opportunity to get out an meet new people and shoot some killer new stuff for the books.    It also doesn’t hurt that this type of work is in very high demand right now and is great for getting all sorts of clients.

After leaving Maine,  we headed south to Boston to take a few days showing the portfolios to some ad agency clients.    I also had the opportunity to shoot Sid Abbruzzi who is the owner of WaterBoys in Newport Rhode Island which is the oldest surf shop in New England.   Sid is also about to be inducted into the Surfing Hall of Fame and is a really great guy with a million stories to tell about the interesting life he has lead.    I also shot some neat stuff of some guys working in a motorcycle shop for the American Worker Project.    While I was busy shooting.   The rest of the family got to explore Boston and learn about the history of our country touring the Freedom trail and other cool stuff.

From there we found ourselves in New York City for 5 days.    I had a quick editorial job to shoot and spent the rest of the time doing personal work,  street shooting and hitting a few of the iconic NY spots with the family.

This last week as you’ve seen has been spent in Lancaster County in MidWestern Pennsylvania  shooting Amish Country and some really cool old steam trains.   Which brings me to the present… Suffice to say, it feels like a whirlwind so far.    What an awesome trip for all of us.

Tomorrow we head towards Philly and I shift into post production mode for a few days as I literally have tens of thousands of images to be edited.    Thursday is a much needed down day as we stuff ourselves on Turkey day visiting Deirdre’s side of the family in Southern New Jersey.

Speaking of stuffed….   Our calendar for the next 30 days does not have a free day on it.    What we have scheduled for the next month makes what we have done so far look like a stroll in the park.    Many miles ahead of us as we zigzag through the the entire Southeastern seaboard.    Some of the travel is part of the various RV road trip photo projects  and,  oh yeah,  I actually have a couple pretty decent ad jobs that I am scheduled to to fly out for as well.    All this before a much needed Christmas break down in Naples FL.

But that is a story for another night….

Please stay tuned for more installments… Thanks for all the “Likes” and great comments,   keep them coming and please feel free to share with your friends.   If you have not done so already,   Please follow me on Instagram @PeteBarrettPhoto as I am steadily growing my following there as well.

Until next time….

Go Go Speed Racer!

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Here is a new personal work project I’ve been working on shooting drag racers.

Like most guys,  I have always liked going to the races.   The only thing better than going to the races as a spectator is getting credentials to shoot them.   I have had the good fortune to shoot many races over the years.    From Formula One,  to assignments from Dodge to shoot the Nascar races at Homestead Motor Speedway & Daytona, to projects for Bloomberg Markets shooting events where the a private luxury car club rents an airstrip for the day to race a multitude of ultra high end supercars at speeds of well over 200 mph.

Of all that I have shot,  nothing trumps the thrill of drag racing.   The sound of the engines roaring as the cars speed down the track.    The smell and sight of the smoke of the burning rubber as they do their burn outs.   It is thrilling.     These guys are fearless.     From the souped up street cars rocking 800 horsepower knocking out 10 second 1/4 miles,  to the top fueled dragsters with up to almost 8,000 horsepower that go from 0 to over 300 mph in less than 4 seconds.   Many equate it to the forces you’d feel taking off in the space shuttle as it puts 5 to 6 times the G forces on you as you rocket down the race track.   They are the fastest accelerating land vehicles on the planet.

I love getting out and shooting all this.     As you kneel down next to them when they do their burnouts you can feel the sound waves pounding you like someone beating you repeatedly really fast with large heavy pillows.   It shakes the ground under you and were it not for the ear muffs, would permanently damage your hearing.  It’s unnerving and super exciting all at the same time.    These are just a few images from part one of an at least 3 part series of shoots.   We have both still and video shoots planned at the Top Fuel NHRA races in Charlotte Motor Speedway in March and the IHRA Nitro drag series in April here in West Palm.

To see more of my work go to the Speed Racer section on my site @       http://www.petebarrett.com/Personal-Work/Speed-Racer/1 or follow me on Instagram   @PeteBarrettPhoto   and stay tuned for more exciting stuff in the coming months!

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Summer again….

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Well it’s nearing the end of summer again and once again we found ourselves in Maine.    The place where we go every year for a few months to get away from the heat of Florida…  It’s an amazing place where time seems to stand still and memories last a lifetime.   Last year was the first year that my son Jordan first started to “get it” and really start to be able to appreciate all the wonderful things about my home town of Belgrade Lakes.    This year was even better than last.    Countless hours spent on the lakes, hiking on mountain trails,  boating, swimming, camping, fishing and catching everything from crabs to frogs to mud puppies.    Here are just a few photos of Jordan doing the things that all little boys love to do in Maine on their summer breaks.

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia from FoundXposed.

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I seem to be on a roll lately.   The folks at Foundfolios just featured some of my personal work from this summer in their email promo today.

It’s always nice when people take notice of your work want to show it.   While our advertising venues are paid to promote us as photographers,  it is especially nice when they go the extra step and show your work in their own promotions which are over and above the ad space that we pay for.    Much like the AtEdge email ad from my last post,   these dual purpose campaigns do a lot to promote the brand of the sourcebook as well as push the individual photographers in a value added service that they provide their photographers.      Thanks guys!

Belgrade Reads – Pro Bono Project

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One of the projects we kept busy with while in Maine this summer was to work on a Pro Bono community service project for the Belgrade Public Library.    This was part of an ongoing campaign call “Belgrade Reads”  where we shoot various people from town reading in varied environments.   Posters are created with the images and placed around town to raise awareness and get people to use the library.     Response has been strong,  library use is way up and they are plans are in the works to build a new larger library.

Here are 3 of the images shot this summer.

 

Fine Art- Summer in Maine

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Just returned from an amazing trip to Maine for the summer.   In addition to spending much needed downtime bonding with the family,  I spent a great deal of time shooting for the books and shooting personal work for fine art projects.   Here is one of the first shots from a series of fine art prints.    I will post more as I finish them.

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa!

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Well our travels have brought us to Cape Town,  South Africa.    If you have never been here,  I highly recommend it.   What an amazing place!    Wonderful people and the scenery is absolutely amazing!     Traveling all around for the last week shooting landscape backgrounds which will end up being part of more complex composites.    Also doing some really neat fine art images with the iPhone.   Will post images as I can.  For now here are some iPhone photos.