Machiasport: Photo shoot highlights small businesses

MACHIASPORT --- The shutters click away as the photographers snap off frame after frame. The studio lights glare down on the models, who shift and turn to best display silver and gold jewelry. The photographs will help promote the jewelry to a national, and potentially international, audience.

It's a typical New York-style photo shoot, except that the studio is a converted front porch of a home overlooking Machias Bay. The photographer, Peter Gommers and his wife own the house and their two dogs, Winston and Polly, wander in out of the set.

The models are not professionals, but are local women: Jennifer Levesque, 28, of Calais, a sleep therapist at Downeast Community Hospital in Machias; Peggy Berry, 55, who works at the Cafe at the University of Maine in Machias, and Arielle Raff, 27, of Eastport, a recruiter for Unobskey College.

The stylist for the shoot was Molly Pierce, a 15-year-old Washington Academy student from Whitneyville.

All of them have some connection to Calais jewelry designer and metalsmith Heather Perry, whose high-end jewelry designs are the focus of the photographs.

"Heather asked me," said Raff, explaining her reasons for doing the shoot. "It sounded like a fun thing to do."

Perry's plans to broaden her business to a wholesale market set the stage for the Saturday evening shoot where art, technology, commerce and community came together to boost a local economy.

Perry was looking for photographs to use at trade shows. In the past, she has used Portland photographers, but this time she turned to the newcomer to the area, Peter Gommers.

Using local people is easier and it promotes Washington County businesses, Perry said.

"I like to promote anything in the local community and help people closer to home," she said. "This is where I work and live. All the people here work and live within an hour of here. This helps to highlight some of the wonderful things that are going on here."

The Gommers left careers in Massachusetts and moved to Machiasport last June to where Ann's parents had lived.

"We gave it up and decided to go live in Maine and enjoy the good life," Peter said.

Peter has turned a life-long interest in photography into a business photographing portraits, landscapes and products. He also provides graphic design services.

Modern technology makes it possible for him to work from home in Washington County.

"With the technology available today, I can work without a laboratory and without working with chemicals or machinery to create photos," he said. "All of it can be done from home; we're not tied to a big city."

From the 1,500 individual frames the duo shot on Saturday, they and Heather will select just five or six images that will be used for Perry's trade show booths.

Three of the photos will become poster-sized images that will hang at the back of the booth. The others will be used on a postcard handout for potential customers.

Using the Internet, the couple can provide camera-ready images that they will e-mail to a printer.

"We can live in this beautiful region and still produce work that meets urban standards," Peter added.

The local photo shoot is an example of a creative economy in Maine that is fostering small businesses in rural locations.

"This is a new lifestyle we're creating," Perry said. "Twenty years ago, it's highly improbable that this could happen."

Although the county still has the highest poverty rate in the state, small businesses are becoming an increasingly important part of the Washington County economy.

"A lot of people think that economic development is about big companies," said Harold Clossey, executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Council. "But we think diversification is an important component of our economic growth."

According to a recent study, there are about 5,400 small businesses in Washington County, businesses that employ less than four or five people, according to Clossey. They accounts for about 30 percent of the county's businesses, he said.

Of course, not all of them are jewelry designers or photographers, but a growing number of artists and craftspeople are being attracted Down East to Washington County, he said.

"There are a lot of highly creative people in Washington County," he said. "They're selling their product to a national and international audience that goes beyond the walls of Washington County."

Events such as the photo shoot help to highlight some of those people and to get the word out, he said.

Perry and Gommers still have some work to do sifting through the many images in search of just the right one. But the artist said she is pleased that, when that work is done, she will have images from home to take with her on the road.

"When I'm in my booth, all I have to do is turn around and look and see my friends," she said. "They'll help me sell more jewelry."