carlo centeno

Rural Marketing

It’s a wonderful drive to get there. Along the way, you’ll see some of the most pastoral and picturesque landscapes that New England can offer.

The restaurant at South Face Sugarfarm is celebrating its last season. For over 30 years, the family has been serving a variety of New England breakfast fare to visitors from all over. Many visitors become regulars who then make the trip every Spring to partake of homemade waffles, pancakes and more. Naturally, the sugarfarm’s maple syrup is the siren that prompts visitors to make the trek. Ours is a leisurely one hour drive.

As far as I can remember, they didn’t do much advertising through the years. You might open a Thursday Lifestyle section of the local newspaper and see a small ad. That was it. No radio, TV, outdoor, direct mail and so on.

I suppose in its purest form, word-of-mouth marketing is its biggest champion in generating traffic. Whenever we’re there, it’s often crowded and if the weather is half-way decent, people who signed in for a table wait outside. We’ve since learned to go as early as possible. People don’t mind waiting; call it rural networking if you will, as you’ll hear introductions and conversations that could work just as well in a big city cafe.

The experience at South Face Sugerfarm Restaurant defines the brand. It’s consistently congenial, comfortable and more. The food is great of course. The service is very good and the overall feel is one of down-to-earth simplicity. Paper plates and plastic utensils are the order of the day. Everything else is home-made if not uniquely belonging to South Face.

On some visits, there’s a cacophony of “hellos” and “great to see you again” mixed in with small talk and the occasional hearty chuckle or a chorus of “No way!” The cozy dining room can be whisper calm one moment and bustling the next.

I know I’ll miss the drive up to little Ashfield, Massachusetts and miss the South Face restaurant even more. But this is New England and somewhere, another sugarhouse beckons an introduction.

CORRECTIONS: I received word from the owner that advertising was actually regularly done via newspapers in the area as well as on the online directory, massmaple.org as well as more recently on Facebook. My apologies for the error.

Marketing Idioms in the Snow

Everyday life is filled with idioms. Sometimes I think of them as bridges connecting a concept, a service, a product, even a person. After a snowfall, the gates open and I’m at the mercy of a brain that works to find a metaphor, an idiomatic expression, a slice each of the expected, unexpected and infrequently, something on the order of the unimaginable.

My favorite type of snow is the dry, fluffy stuff. It may not pack well to create a snowball or a snowman, but it’s easy to shovel off a driveway or brush off a car. For many skiers, fresh powder is nirvana: how can this get any better?

This kind of snowfall encourages you to look around. The cars are covered like blankets. Flat, open fields are akin to a slice of white bread. The trees look powdered by confectionary sugar. This kind of snow is a visible version of a special aura. Whatever is under the snow takes on another quality. Attributes of beauty, protection, secrecy, purity, freshness are some that come to mind. “Use _____ soap because it’s as pure as the driven snow.”

In this case, snow isn’t all that bad now, is it?

“I could get used to this…”

Lexus is currently running a :30 second TV spot for their 2016 ES model. The tag identifier is, “I could get used to this.” The marketing inference being one can upgrade to the next levels of luxury, prestige and social standing.

We all have aspirations though many, I dare say, are with things material. I’m no exception. However, after awhile, there’s a point of diminishing returns. No one needs the biggest, baddest, coolest of anything. Marketing feeds our psyche, fuels our heart’s desire; then the new car smell and the “!@$!@ I’m-on-top-of-my-game feeling” validates our consumerism. After awhile, we all float back to terra firma. That new car smell is gone and feelings of euphoria dissipate into the the air.

These photos were taken at The Mount, the home of American author Edith Wharton, the first woman to earn a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The grounds and mansion are now collectively recognized as a historical site. It’s a favorite stop for fans of the gilded age, beautiful gardens and literature. Do I aspire to own and live in such a mansion? Do you?

Really now, on this scale I’m better off living vicariously; doing so precludes mortals like me from paying taxes, utility bills, hiring staff etc. Frankly, my “I could-get-used-to-this” license would expire within 5-6 weeks if not days. Some would welcome the possibility of having such a life, others would frown with disdain for the scale of the home and grounds, the sentimemt being that of excess. Besides, I’d have to get a riding mower just to do the backyard lawn! Do you have any idea how long that would take…?!

Remnants v3

MOMA has a photography exhibit, appropriately, Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015. It runs through March 20 and I hope to plan an escape some weekend. It seems that each year, this exhibition—like others that explore trends and new artists in a given medium—brings out the opposing camps: “No, this isn’t photography” in one corner versus “Of course it is, it’s a new, fresh look at photography” in the other. Time marches on so change is inevitable, good or bad. For now, I take a look back.

These B&W photos—like the ones in Remnant and Remnant v2 come from the same collection or year they were taken, which was sometime in 1973. I am particularly moved by this photo, a portrait of a teacher I had in high school. Mr. Dinsmore was his name. He had an emotional quotient [EQ] that was apparent long before EQ became a chapter in any number of business management books and case studies. First and foremost, he was a very good english literature teacher.

Sadly, I learned that Mr. Dinsmore passed away, a brain tumor taking him from the school and his charges. His spirit—and my memory of him—lives on.

Remnants v2

I love “time machines.” Old print ads, mechanical cameras and fountain pens, and of course, museums.

Coming across black & negatives and prints—especially those you haven’t seen in decades—is a journey all its own. I’m not waxing forlornly for the past, but I am revisiting these slices of time: what are the “whys” and “wheres” of these images?

Remnants

These 2 photographs were taken before many millennials were born. They were taken with a Nikon F with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, using TRI-X film 400, sometime in the fall of 1973. I suspect that these 2 views are probably different today, and I dare not visit the space for fear that in their place will be condos or parkways or other concrete manifestations that tend to mute my sense of self.

This Space between Distance and Gratitude

Rainbow Connection

If you’re curious, you’ll find my most recent post here.

Heaven Does Wait

In the 1978 movie, Heaven Can Wait, there’s a whimsical scene showing souls boarding a plane destined for heaven. They’re all adults, quietly and in orderly fashion waiting their turn to be checked on a list before taking the stairs. If I was to peer through a special window, one that would allow a real-time glimpse of say, a staging area, these 2 images represent what I’d see.

Why so barren? Nirvana has no time: no early or late or anything resembling the way we measure time passing. How can you measure a concept or notion that has neither a start nor an end? What I’m really saying here is that while heaven or Nirvana has no clock, we do, and the barren quality of these images can mean several things, each a statement to our genuine condition as human beings. To wit:

Few reach Nirvana
Nirvana waits for the few
Souls are crowding another place, one quite incorrigibly different and likely perilous to reach

Frankly, if I chose another moment to peer through that existential, real-time window, I’d probably see children. They’re the ones who have the least amount of pretense. They are the real innocents of our civilization.

Obsolete Film, Interesting Images

It doesn’t take a whole lot to keep me entertained. While on vacation I took some photos using outdated medium format film [120 Fuji NPH 400 color negative].

It is true that using film cameras can slow you down, but that’s not a bad thing if you want to slow things down a bit. Shooting medium format film—to me anyway—can be relaxing. I have to think, be immersed if you will, because everything is manually and mechanically accomplished: shutter speed, aperture, exposure, film advance, loading/unloading and so forth.

Call it nostalgia, but I get a lot of pleasure controlling my cameras versus having cameras control everything right up to when the shutter is pressed.

Using “obsolete” photo gear

Of late I’ve been using an “obsolete” system and getting some incredible results. To wit:

Hasselblad 553 ELX
Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f/4.0 CF
Imacon Ixpress V16 digital back
Imacon Image Bank [tethered hard drive to back]

This photo is an enlargement of the top left-hand corner. I was checking for focus and didn’t realize the scale of magnification I was using in post production. I was astounded to say the least. [click on photos to enlarge] Can you read what’s written on the Jersey barrier? Can you see the name of the front loader on the left? Notice the pile of stones to the right of the frame…

Instant gratification

Earlier this month, I took out my Rolleiflex 6008 Pro and took a few photos using Polaroid 679 pack film. For those old enough to remember, Polaroids were frequently used to check exposure, light quality, composition, subject focus, depth of field and so on. These are but a few samples I took; in each case, the texture, the feel and ambiance of the image puts me in a calm state of mind.