09/04/2026
Behind the cover of this month’s Mohawk Valley Living 🍎
People think photography is just point and click. It’s not.
This shot took 7 farmers, in an apple orchard on a hot sunny day, with the sun overhead and moving in and out of clouds the whole time. Getting everyone evenly lit, with harsh shadows fighting me one minute and flat gray light the next, all at once? That’s not luck, that’s 20+ years of reading light.
And then there was the 3-day-old calf who also needed her photo taken.
Turns out my go-to trick for getting a calf to look at the camera is... mooing at her. Not exactly what they teach you in photography school, but it worked.
This is the part of the job nobody sees. The technical decisions, the timing, the on-the-spot problem solving (and apparently the mooing, just ask the farmers, they were laughing). North Star Orchards Blacque Acres Inc. Shawna Papale Farmer Ben Casler Flower Farm Fly Creek Cider Mill Jones Family Farm LLC
Huge thank you to Carrie Byrne Putelo Carrie Byrne Putelo for trusting me with this cover 🙏 Can’t wait to collaborate again soon. Watch the video to see the cover and the inside spread of photos 📸 Go grab a copy of the magazine, it’s out!!!!
PhotographyIsACraft JMRVisuals CentralNewYork MohawkValley FarmLife