If you are receiving my blog for the first time, I'm Tim Becker, a commercial photographer based in Manchester, CT helping New England businesses with visual communication for marketing, public relations, and social media. I share some of my more interesting photo assignments and my thoughts regarding photography every few months to prospective clients. Please unsubscribe if you do not wish to receive further messages.

I recently undertook an epic project traveling around the State of Connecticut to 14 locations in 10 towns to photograph the facilities and employees of Superior Product Distributors. I photographed store exteriors, interiors, products, and over 150 employees at their workstations. I delivered 2967 images that filled up 51.4 gigabytes of data for this amazing family owned company.

According to their website; “Superior Product Distributors, Inc. is Southern New England’s largest independent, family owned, group of closely integrated companies, dedicated to providing the construction market with a vast selection of diversified construction products, equipment, rentals and sales, instrumentations, specialized services, jobsite supplies and people with the expertise that you need to get the job done quickly and efficiently. Superior is Southern New England’s destination for contractors and homeowner’s supplies.”

Many of the photo assignments started at 6:30 AM before the stores opened and continued throughout the day. Each store’s location has its own vibe despite having the same supplies.  The Seymour location can be seen from I-84 with a large independent quarry behind it. Their latest store in Waterbury also has a garden center with beautiful flowers. There are also two stores that exclusively sell spas and fireplace units.

I used my vintage Nikon 7100 DSLR with a 10-24mm and a 18-140mm lens with a Godox portable flash, as a fill flash or with a bounce card. I did use lights with umbrellas for the formal executive head shots. I handheld the camera or used a monopod or tripod when it was practical. The employees’ jobs varied from accounting, sales, and marketing to driving trucks and loading materials with a forklift. Everyone I met was very kind and cooperative, posing for their portrait.

I spent about ten minutes with each employee finding a suitable background and I took a variety of angles and poses. The project took three full days and three half days to complete. I would have loved to spend an hour with each employee so I could set up dramatic lighting and angles, but that would have taken months, and the employees would have been away from their jobs far too long. Instead, I went for a nice even lighting and happy expressions. I enjoyed handling this project immensely! Here are samples of my location portraits.

Cell phones have made photography easy for everyone, however producing these portraits required a complete understanding of fill flash lighting, composition and the joy I have helping people to look great in front of my lens!

Here is another in my series of Google Virtual tours of Brew Pubs. I was assigned to photograph two rather amazing breweries and taprooms with the same owners:

The original Mighty Squirrel in Waltham, Massachusetts and the latest Mighty Squirrel near Fenway Park in Boston at One David Ortiz Drive. https://www.mightysquirrel.com/ 

The Waltham brewery has a climbing gym next door, with a viewing window.

There also is a very nice back room available for hosting private parties.

The newest Mighty Squirrel has two levels and is a short walk from Fenway Park and very busy on game day.

There also is a wide selection of Mighty Squirrel attire available for purchase.

You can take the Google virtual tour of the Waltham brewery here:

and the Two Level Boston brewery here:

 https://maps.app.goo.gl/kbkeTP1qPobo1D7g6

Enjoy!

In the 1980s I had the privilege to handle numerous photo assignments for Emhart Corporation in Farmington, Connecticut. As a fortune 200 corporation; Emhart had several divisions that included industrial operations. As a freelancer, I provided photos for the corporate newspaper, which was mailed to Emhart employees and shareholders. Handling those assignments is where I learned industrial photography. In those days I shot film: black and white negative, color transparency and slides. There were no automatic exposure or automatic focus cameras. I had to figure out manual settings for everything. There were even more ways to mess up. If time permitted, I would set up my roll film camera and use my polaroid back to check my lighting. Most often there was no time to set up lighting. I was never sure that my photos were good until the film processing was completed. It could be later that day or the next day. There was always a chance the the photo lab would mess up your film. A few times I got that dreaded call from the lab.

I was assigned to photograph the foundry at the Farrel Division in Ansonia, Connecticut. At the time, Farrel made 25 foot long iron rolls for the paper industry from scratch. The foundry was in an old brick building that was very dark. The process was called a double pour and lasted about two minutes. The molten metal had to swill through the molds evenly to get a good pour. I hadn't photographed anything like this before and I wasn't happy with my results. I didn't leave the shutter open long enough to get a nice spark pattern.

I asked if I could take this assignment again at my own expense. I got a second chance about a week later. This time, I brought my roll film camera loaded with color negative film which allows for a wider range of exposure. I also shot with my 35mm Nikon F; which now serves as a nice paperweight. The two images above have been in my portfolio ever since. There is something about molten metal, sparks, and fire that is visually compelling. Regrettably, a couple of weeks after I took the foundry photos, I was informed that the foundry was closing and the photos wouldn't be published.

Late last year I was thrilled to hear from the marketing director of Farrel Pomini asking for a quote to photograph a large piece of equipment. Wow, after 45 years I had an opportunity to do more photos at Farrel! I forwarded the foundry photo along with my quote and got the job. The old brick building downtown was sold years ago and Farrel Pomini built a new facility in a very nice industrial park in Ansonia. The machine I was to photograph was still being constructed and tested, so I needed to do some fancy Photoshop work to remove the background and photographically bolt on a cover plate and make wires and hoses disappear. 

I photographed this cover plate separately so that I could place it on the machine in Photoshop.

My good friend Tony helped me with the shoot. I used three large strobe lights with umbrellas on heavy twelve foot light stands, weighed down with sand bags, to evenly light the machine. I took three shots: straight on, at an angle and elevated on a ladder. I used my 45MP Nikon 850 that produces amazing quality 8256px X 5504px images. The tough part of the assignment was the photo retouching. It me took over a week to complete the cloning and tweaking of each image. I added a new background and a drop shadow.

After sending images back and forth to the client, the final images were approved. 

The marketing director told me that the images were "beautiful" and that she would send my invoice to accounting for payment. I was ecstatic!

I don't believe that there are many industrial photographers left in Connecticut; but I love being where metal is being heated, poured, cut, shaped, welded or formed and machines are being assembled and tested. That is my happy place. It is even better if I can get into an enclosed platform that is raised up by a forklift truck to get an overall view with my wide angle lens. That is how I like to get high!

Last May I was amped up to photograph the first day of the Connecticut Spring Boat Show in Essex, CT. I arrived early and I was thrilled to find a parking space on the street close to the entrance of the show. I couldn’t wait to see the exquisite yachts that can cost as much as a large mansion. Everyone attending the show had to take a short ferry ride to the docks. I got nervous when I found out that the docks are constantly moving up and down on the water; since I need to take the 360-degree images for a virtual tour from a stationary tripod. I checked in with the show owner, and we walked through the areas of the show where he wanted the Google virtual tour to go. I took a bunch of still shots around the show which had multiple walkways and boat slips. It was one of those perfect spring days.

I had only taken the two cameras and the tripod, since I didn't want to lug my big camera bag around. I set up my tripod to start taking the virtual tour images,  I turned my camera on and …. nothing. I have been a professional photographer for over fifty years; and I was furious at myself for making the classic rookie mistake.

I always fully charge my batteries after each assignment before I place my camera back in my camera bag. Apparently, this battery was at the end of it's useful life and did not hold a charge, and I failed to check my camera before leaving my car. I had made the classic rookie mistake! How embarrassing. Being a photographer can keep you humble because there are so many things that can go wrong. I had to tell the show owner that I had made a rookie mistake and that I would be back. 

Fortunately, I keep many charged batteries in the trunk of my car. I had to take the short ferry ride back to land and then take a walk to my car. By this time the crowds were starting to arrive making the virtual tour photography a bit more difficult. You will see many blurred people walking around me in the virtual tour images.  At least the weather and the yachts were beautiful. I keep my fingers crossed that the moving dock would not be a problem with the panorama photos. The next day I stitched up the panoramas on my computer and they looked great. What a relief! Then I ordered more camera batteries. You can’t ever have too many batteries in your camera bag, and you need to bring extra batteries with you! The Google tour is here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/bTHREpZ4TvqgngBq6

With the cold and snow we have experienced on the east coast this winter, I thought it would be pleasant to take a late summer virtual visit to the Catskills. I photographed this tour in September of 2024. Spring will be with us soon since players report this week to many major league spring training camps. I can't wait for baseball to start again!   The Foxfire Mountain House https://www.foxfiremountainhouse.com/ in Mount Tremper, NY is a restored inn on ten private acres in the Catskills. The inn offers guestrooms, cottages and a cabin with a pond on their grounds. The inn hosts weddings as well as offering fine dinning and a bar. 

Enjoy a relaxing Google virtual tour through the inn and around the grounds and the lily pod here: