The Whole Ox

My friends Derek and Amanda have just (on Sept 1st) opened their new business in Marshall, VA.  It is called, as the title of this blog suggests, "The Whole Ox", and they are a boutique butcher shop.  Derek is the butcher and chef, and Amanda is the front of house and jack of all other trades involved in operating a small business.  Their shop is located inside the IGA supermarket in Marshall and they have taken over all of the meat/butcher responsibilities for the store.  They are passionate and vocal advocates of local, organically raised livestock, and strive to carry the best possible products at competitive prices.  I had the opportunity to pop in and check on them on their 2nd morning of operation and take a few photos to help promote their business.  If you do not understand that our meat comes from an animal, or if images of preparing an animal for consumption by those of us who are omnivores might disturb you, stick to the first few images.

Amanda explaining their superior product to a new customer.

And now, here comes the meat!

To say "thanks" Derek gave me a gift of one of these Culotte steaks, which I promptly took home and put under the broiler.  Magnifique!

Amanda stocks their first plate of free-range, cage-free, organic chickens:

OK kids, here is where meat comes from:

 The couple that filets together, stays together.  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So, join me in congratulating Amanda and Derek on the birth of their brand new small business!  I wish you all the best success and prosperity!

Not long for this world

After a period of several months where 95% of the photographs I have taken were related to equestrian activities, I finally had the opportunity to do a fine art nude shoot last night with Rebecca.  I wanted to use moonlight for the shoot.  Sunday night was a perfect moon night because even though the moon was just a little more than half waxing, there was not a single cloud in the sky and things were bright and beautiful.  But, we were shooting last night, and of course there were a series of thunderstorms that rolled through early in the evening with residual cloudiness afterwords.  That meant that I had to turn to an alternative light source, in this case my 4 C-cell Maglight to be able to work.  We went to a local cemetery that is older and therefore has a variety of interesting headstones and monuments to provide locations for the shoot.  Rebecca was spot on with her posing during exposures of up to 30 seconds (in spite of being nibbled upon rather liberally by the local insect population), and we made a variety of images that included light painting, movement, and later in the shoot the moon actually peeked out for a few minutes so that we could do some moonlit images.  Working with slow exposure times means that the pace of shooting is much slower, and we only created 70 images in about 2 hours, but quality always beats out sheer quantity.  To my mind the images we created evoke a feeling of transience, and the dichotomy between the stillness of the resting place of so many who are gone from this world and the life and beauty of Rebecca is striking.  I am hoping to be able to shoot again during the full moon on Friday, but as always we are subject to the whims of time and nature.  In the mean time, I hope you enjoy the  images, and as always, prints are available.

The "Lost" photo shoot

Well, its been 6 months since my last posting.  I blame a long slow winter and beg forgiveness from the precious few who follow my ramblings.  Well, spring (and very nearly summer) is finally here, and I thought it would be a good time to get off my ass and write something and share some photography.  So here it is!

As most of you know, I went back to photography school in Jan 2010 for an 8 month long, full time program.  The weekend before I started back to school, I took a trip to Santa Fe to go snowboarding with my friend Susie.  While I was there, we visited the local "gentlemen's club" for some entertainment.  While there, I met one of the dancers named Amanda who, after a ringing endorsement from Susie as to my photographic skills, expressed an interest in modeling for me while I was in town. 

I was staying at a really cool Japanese style spa/resort called 10,000 Waves (their website is http://tenthousandwaves.com/).  For anybody going to the Santa Fe area, I highly recommend it.  They have really nice bungalo rooms, very cool spa/bathing rooms, a nude hot tub area, and a full range of spa services.  Ok enough with the endorsement, on with the story.

You might be asking yourself, "why is he rambling on, and what does all this have to do with being 'Lost'?"  Well, I'm coming to that now, and no, it doesn't involve the Dharma Initiative.  The shoot was "lost" because immediately after the shoot ended, I:  got in the car, drove to Albuquerque, got on a plane back to Virginia, where I jumped into school after only a couple of days, spent 8 months in school, another 8 months getting through another winter season, and only yesterday got around to going through the images from our shoot together and actually processed some images.  Amanda is athletic and cute, and I'm happy with the work that we did together.  So, enough with the rambling on, and on to the photography.  As always, I hope you enjoy it!

Tyler

ps.  I really have to apologize to Amanda and beg her forgiveness for taking so long to get back around to these images, and I will endeavor to be more persistent and consistent with posting updates.  TK