Tag Archives: Maine

Winterberry Farm – American Worker Project #6

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Earlier this fall,   I had the opportunity to shoot at Winterberry Farm as part of my American Worker Project.

WinterberryBlog02WinterberryBlog01Located in the heart of the Belgrade Lakes Region in Belgrade, Maine, Winterberry Farm is a small, diversified certified organic farm set on forty acres of open fields, pastures and woodland.      It is owned by a very nice and hard working family.    Mary Perry is the owner, and she along with her 3 kids, (Kenya,  Gil and Sage) run the farm.    As anyone can imagine,  running a farm is hard work but doing it on your own with just your 3 kids (Kenya is actually off to college now) is very hard work.  Did I mention that they don’t use machinery to tend the fields?    Instead they have 2 very stout oxen that do the heavy lifting.   Regardless, hard or not,  to look at them you just know that they love it.           For more on the family and their farm, see their website here here.

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Only fifteen minutes from Augusta and Waterville, it boasts an 1870’s Victorian farmhouse, a shaker-built barn, lush gardens, and the Winterberry Farm Farmstore where they sell some of Maine’s finest all-natural and certified organic foods.

Their mission is to create a sense of community and belonging by offering wholesome food and flowers and to restore old-fashioned values by inviting people to come and experience life the way it used to be, on their animal powered farm.

Their commitment to sustainable agriculture allows us to produce abundant food and flowers without depleting resources or polluting the environment.

Their certified organic food is produced specifically with families in mind, to ensure the health of our children and the land on which they are raised.

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The Sheet Metal Man – The American Worker Installment #4

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For my 4th addition to The American Worker Project I decided to include a local icon in my home town of Belgrade Lakes Maine.    His name is John Gawler and he is another person that no matter when you see him,  he always greets you with a warm smile.    He is one of these guys who you’d be hard pressed to find someone who had something negative to say about him…  a genuinely good person.  

For most of his life John has made his living working in sheet metal which means he works a lot fabricating and installing people’s roofs, making metal chimneys, metal flashings and other things of that nature.   Over the years he has worked on pretty much everything from roofs for the locals to high profile jobs for people like Oscar De La Renta doing custom copper work on his New England home.   One might imagine that being a roofer in Maine can be tough especially in the winter months but you’d never know it talking to John…. he’s been doing it since he was 17 years old and seems to love every minute of it.   Ask him and he will tell you that he has always loved being outdoors and being up high, even as a kid he was always up high in a tree somewhere.

In addition to being a damn fine roofer,   John (and his whole immediate family) are extremely talented musicians and entertainers.    When I was a kid I remember they used to throw a folk festival called “The Buttermilk Hill Festival”  up on their farm every year. Today they regularly perform and play concerts for many of the local community events and elsewhere around the state.   They even have a few cd’s with their music on them.     But that is yet another story for another day….

 

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If you like what you see here,   please follow me on Instagram  @PeteBarrettPhoto to keep up with where we are in the world and what projects we are shooting.

Fishing Guide & Conservationist – The American Worker Project #3

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For my 3rd installment into The American Worker Project I chose to shoot long time Maine fishing guide Mike Guarino of Maine Wilderness Tours.  (Mike is the one in red)    I first met Mike back in 1998 on a stock photo shoot I did back in my Sharpshooters days.    I’ve seen him a bunch of times over the years and it occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a smile on his face.    He one of those guys that not only loves what he does for a living but generally seems to really enjoy life itself.     He does have a pretty good gig though,  there are worse jobs than going out in the great outdoors and fishing everyday.  😉

When I approached Mike this time with the idea of including him in The American Worker Project he was instantly on board.     He even recruited fellow angler Dr Peter Kallin to join us on this chilly fall morning to go out and create some great fishing stills and video.

Peter is not only a great fisherman subject but is also an avid conservationist.     In addition to a long career,   Peter is the Executive Director of the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance where he works tirelessly to help monitor and control the quality of the watershed in Maine’s most important resource,  its lakes.

Enjoy the images below.   I will be posting some video as well at a later date.   Stay tuned!

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Lobster Fishing- The American Worker Project #2

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Lobstah10 My second installment into The American Worker Project brought me Down East to the coast of Maine in a little place called Brooklin Maine.    Specifically the waters off of Eggemoggin Reach just a few miles south of Mount Desert Island, but a seemingly miles away from all the crowds and tourists that one encounters when touring Acadia.

I was introduced to my new lobstering friends,  Patrick and his sister Sharlene Grant, by our new friend and host Laurie, of Ocean Front Camping of Reach Knolls in Brooklin.      Laurie and her husband Paul were amazing hosts and also a wealth of knowledge in assisting me with setting up several of my shoots.   But that is a story for another post….  Stay tuned.

Getting back to my exciting day of lobstering….   Here are a few more photos from that cold morning on the water.     Scroll down below the following photos for more info on my hard working subjects Patrick and Sharlene.

Lobstah13Lobstah05Lobstah04Lobstah12Lobstah16We started out our morning early at the crack of dawn,  what turned out to be a late start compared to their normal days.   After boarding their boat and loading up the day’s bait, we had a quick discussion about what we were going to shoot and how I can get the best shots without ending up in their way or over the side of the boat.  😉   I couldn’t have asked for better subjects.  They  were super nice and gave me free reign on their boat to shoot whatever I wanted.   

Patrick and Sharlene are second generation lobster fishermen.    Both started out at a very early age just as their father before them.   Sharlene worked the boats off and on over the years and took time every summer to fish alongside her brother and her dad.   Patrick has followed in his dads footsteps and has hardly missed a day on the water in over 30 years.    It is hard work, but when you talk with them you see that they really love it.    You would have to love it to get out on some of the cold mornings…    😉   It was a blustery 29 degrees Fahrenheit the day we went out.    Fortunately the sun was out.   I can only imagine what it must be like when it is cold and blowing with rain added in on top of that.

The job of a commercial lobsterman is hard.   You work really long hours,  get up super early and head out to search for your bouys in a sea of what seems like millions of bouys. This task of finding your traps (or Pots) has been simplified somewhat with the invention of the GPS but finding them and hauling them in is still an arduous task.    Patrick captains the boat and snags and hauls in the traps while Sharlene preps the bait and does all the measuring, banding and sorting of the keepers vs the rejects.    Then Patrick drops the pots and the process is repeated about a zillion times.    All the while being soaked with freezing cold water.   Simple right?  😉   Watching them work was something else,   they are like a well oiled machine.      One of the highlights of the day was when Sharlene pulled in a pot that at first glance only had two lobsters in it… upon further inspection it turned out to be one lobster that had shed its shell and left a perfectly preserved shell of its former self right next to it.    A pretty rare find,  even for a seasoned pro.

All in all we had a pretty good day.   While it started out slow,   it picked up about mid morning.   Patrick joked that it seemed like every time I would switch from stills to video  we seemed to bring in lots more pots full with lobsters.    Sounds like a joke but it literally happened like that 3 times in a row.   Stay tuned for an update with our video we shot that day.  In the end we went back in to port with about 4oo+ pounds of lobster.    Which is a pretty good haul for about 1/2 days worth of  lobstering at the end of the season.

At the end of the day they sent me home with a giant bucket of lobsters and a few crabs and my family and I had the feast of our lives!    Thanks so much to them both for making me feel welcome and for being such great subjects!
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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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Beginning The American Worker Project.

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Well at long last after hunkering down over the holidays we are able to post the first of many shoots to come for my new ongoing project called “The American Worker Project”. As we are traveling around the country we are getting the opportunity to meet and shoot all sorts of new people and things.     The American Worker Project is a way to visually feature and document (both on video and stills) some of the wonderful people we are meeting along our journey.   So far we have had the great pleasure to shoot in a lumber yard in Maine,  lobster fishermen on a lobster boat,    a man who hand makes wooden boats and also carves wooden boat models,  an old friend and metal roof man,  the owner of the oldest surf shop in New England,   Amish dairy farmers,  a train engineer and much more.   Here are a few images of the first of many to come.   Stay tuned….

UPDATE:   Added more shots from new shoots,  see below…

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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….

Earlybird Wake Skating Shoot! 5:00 a.m. 52 degrees

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The earlybird catches the wake skater!         Got up early on this morning to shoot wake skaters at Camp Modin.    Nothing like waking up at 4:15 and on the water at 5:00 am on a crisp 52 degree summer morning in Maine.    These kids braved the cold and never once complained.    When it’s chilly like that the water actually seems really warm!

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Summertime Fun!

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Well summer is finally here and let the fun begin!    Schools are out and it is time for kids everywhere to get out and enjoy all the things that kids get to do in the summer.    As many of you know every summer we move our base of operations to Maine to the quaint little town of Belgrade Lakes.      See the enclosed link to see some of the fun stuff we shot last summer and featured in a recent direct mail piece that went out to about 3,500 creatives at advertising agencies and client direct clients around the country.     Click here  or on the image below to see the mailer 

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This year we are looking forward to doing more great stuff.     Shooting several new projects both in video and stills of everything from a beverage project of teens enjoying a day of rope swinging at the lake, to a video project of a grandpa and grandson out fishing and other fun lifestyle scenarios.    I am also planning to start a personal series documenting real people such as river rafting guides, fishing guides,  boat builders,  commercial lobstermen and other local flavor.

I am looking to collaborate with as many people as I can on these projects so if you are a creative person or someone in the industry such as crew or talent or just want to come out and lend a hand and learn how we do what we do,  give me a call at 305/557-0694 or drop me an email at   barrett@petebarrett.com

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Gotta Little Captain In You?

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So some may ask, “What do you guys do all summer up there in Maine?” Well how about dressing a guy up in a pirate outfit and pulling him on water skis behind a plane? Sounds perfectly safe right? Had some fun the other day shooting Adam Gardner getting his “Captain on” for the Captain Morgan “get a little Captain in you” promo.

Step 1: Get a boat that goes really fast.
Step 2: find a pilot willing to break a few rules.
Step 3: find a guy willing to be dragged behind a plane.
Step 4: Add a few shots of Captain and make magic! Fun stuff.