I’ve kinda gotten away from weighing in on politics for the most part. But I figured I’d weigh in on this hot topic at the moment. Most of the outdoor industry, including hunters and granola tree huggers, hikers, greenies, flat-earthers, global warming activists, and others have coalesced to become strange bedfellows lately as they are all up in arms right now against Senator Mike Lee (R) UT. I find the outrage from most of the outdoor industry at Senator Mike Lee’s proposal to sell some federal lands a little odd.
Just to catch up on some of what’s going on. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is making it’s way through the Senate. Utah Senator Mike Lee attached a draft proposal which would seek to sell approximately 3 million acers of formerly Government owned land in 11 western states for the purpose of affordable housing and ranching. The proposal has been met with a lot of pushback and a liberal propoganda campaign to kill it with misinformation and scare tactics. The proposal does not seek to sell off yellowstone contrary to what many have been lead to believe.
It mostly seems to affect western states (11 specificly), where, in my opinion, the Federal government owns way too much land and private land ownership is a minority. In Utah for example, over 75% of land is government owned. I find that a little odd being from Arkansas where only 17% of our state is government owned and private land ownership makes up 82.7% of our states map.
(Public land – New Mexico)
Granted, no one wants to lose access to public land including me, and yes some cool things have been protected from greedy development. But is “Public land” really public land? Let a budget bill close government offices and see if you still have access to “Public” land. You’ll be promptly fined and escorted off of places like Felsenthal NWR by game wardens. It’s happened multiple times in my life yet I’ve never once needed the government office down there or most of the people that work in it and yet if the office is not open due to government shutdown, neither is the “public” land.
I’ll also add that from a hunting perspective, I’ve been on a lot of hunts, all of my life and all over the country on both public and private land. I can honestly say that the best, most successful, peaceful, fulfilling, conservation-minded hunts that I’ve ever been on, were almost without exception on private land. Yes, it is expensive and not everyone has access to that, but the government is good at one thing and that’s poor management and bureaucracy.
I’ve also always kind of found it interesting how red-blooded conservatives will rail against socialism like government provided healthcare, and other forms of overreaching policies but yet seem to turn a blind eye to the fact that public hunting on public ground is eerily similar to a socialist hunting club. That’s why you have things like 4:00 am bread line duck boat races, fist fights at trailheads, and poor hunting success rates on public land compared to private land.
(Private Land – New Mexico)(Private Land – New Mexico)
It’s also my opinion that government ownership of land is largely outside the scope of the foundational purpose of the federal government. If the federal government were reigned in to only worry itself with protecting its citizens from foreign adversaries and ensuring regular interstate commerce, we’d be much better off. Should some lands be protected? Absolutely. But it’s not the most American principle I can think of to use government as a means to provide access to “the king’s forest” and it shouldn’t be normative. I’m not so sure that giving people a place to hike was the idea behind manifest destiny or westward expansion. When my great, great, great, grandparents moved to South Arkansas to homestead in 1855, they did so with the promise and hope of land ownership through sacrifice and hard work. Not just access privileges to the kings forest.
Now I think the proposal from Senator Lee is probably dead at this point although I think he may have revised it to address some of the concerns that have been raised. Which is good. It shows Mike is listening to his constituents. My hope isn’t necessarily to change anything about the bill, but I do hope people will kind of consider a different perspective on what really constitutes “Public” land and the trade off between it and private lands and whether some land should really be public. There is no perfect solution. These are just some thoughts to ponder.
At Riverbank Products, we take pride in helping growing companies sharpen their image, communicate their vision, and elevate their brand across all channels. One of our most recent projects highlights the full scope of what we do: partnering with 4R Marketing as they expand operations and strengthen their presence in the oils and wax industeries
4R Marketing, based in Smackover, Arkansas, has been steadily growing in recent years. With that growth came the need for a fresh, modern digital presence that reflects their professionalism and forward momentum. Riverbank Products was proud to lead the complete redesign of their new website, fourrmarketing.com, creating a clean, responsive platform that clearly communicates who they are, what they do, and where they’re going next.
But our collaboration didn’t stop there.
When 4R Marketing announced their latest expansion, a significant investment in the rail yard infrastructure at their Camden facility—they needed high-quality visual content to support the story. Riverbank Products provided professional photography, drone video, and aerial stills to capture the scope of the expansion and the scale of their operations. These visuals were featured in a recent press release that we helped craft providing the media with a strong visual narrative to accompany the exciting news for this south Arkansas business.
Whether it’s building a website from the ground up, fine-tuning a brand identity, or capturing story telling imagery and aerial media assets, Riverbank Products offers a full suite of creative and technical services tailored to meet the needs of growing businesses.
We’re proud to support 4R Marketing as they continue to expand, and we’re excited to keep delivering the quality and care our clients count on.
Interested in elevating your brand or telling your company’s story more effectively? Contact Riverbank Products today—we’d love to learn about your goals and how we can help you achieve them.
Having an awesome product is one thing. Having one that looks good on a store shelf is all together different. We can help
Crafting the Perfect Packaging for Richland Creek Farm & Market
At Riverbank Products, we love helping local businesses bring their vision to life through thoughtful design. One of our recent projects was with Richland Creek Farm & Market, a brand known for its specialty product Mayhaws, a native southern fruit tree. Richland Creek takes the berries from thes beautiful trees and sells mayhaw fruit as well as artisanal jellies and jams and farm other farm fresh produce.
The Richland Creek Farm and market is known for its charming french country aesthetic and high-quality small-batch products. We had the pleasure of designing packaging graphics for their delicious jellies, and couldn’t be more excited about the final result!
A Packaging Concept Rooted in Tradition
Richland Creek Farm & Market wanted packaging that reflected their brand’s rustic elegance while making their jelly products stand out on retail shelves. To achieve this, we designed retail boxes that house three jars of their signature jellies, combining both function and style.
The Design: Rustic Meets Refined
Brown cardboard was selected as the primary material for the boxes, giving them an organic, artisanal touch that aligns with the handcrafted nature of Richland Creek’s jellies. The black text and graphics create a striking contrast, ensuring the branding is clear and visually appealing. The overall look embraces simplicity while exuding a timeless, French country charm that complements the brand’s identity.
Functionality Meets Aesthetic
Beyond aesthetics, we focused on creating packaging that is practical and protective. The sturdy design ensures the jars remain secure while also making the box easy to carry and display. The layout of the graphics enhances readability, allowing customers to quickly recognize the brand and its premium offerings.
Our Packaging Expertise
Our work with Richland Creek Farm & Market is just one example of how we create packaging that resonates with a brand’s identity. We’ve also had the opportunity to design packaging for Havoc Aid, a private label promotional energy drink for Havoc Boats, and a previous product we marketed ourselves called Bayed Up BBQ rub seasoning. Each project showcases our ability to blend creativity with functionality, ensuring that packaging not only protects the product but also enhances its market appeal.
Bringing the Vision to Life
Working with Richland Creek Farm & Market on this project was a rewarding experience. Their commitment to quality and tradition inspired us to craft a packaging design that not only showcases their product beautifully but also tells their story.
If you’re in need of custom packaging solutions that align with your brand’s unique aesthetic, Riverbank Products is here to help. Contact us and let’s bring your vision to life.
We’re fast approaching the end of 2023. It was a great year in some ways. I felt the Lord’s provision and direction in a lot of different areas this year. I got to work with some great clients. Really helped some people along the way. Made new friends and new clients. Experienced God’s goodness and mercy in many areas.
A lot of people are making plans and resolutions for the new year. And while we can and should work towards goals each year and hope and pray for good things to happen. We also have to be obedient and listen to God’s leading. I’m not suggesting that we should pray for bad things, but I promise you this, God’s blessings are not always health, wealth, and prosperity. I find real blessings are more often direction changes that test and strengthen our faith in his good and perfect will for the lives of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
The economy is tough. A lot of things are not as we would like them to be in the world. There have been many times this year when I wasn’t sure where my next project would come from, yet he provided over and above what I needed. And he allowed me to capture some of his majesty on display in the process. That’s such a blessing.
The first image in the video below is of a wren that nested in a gourd behind my house. A good friend of my dad’s grew them last year. I cleaned a few of them up and hung them here and there. This little chain of events led up to this photo. God used us to provide for this little defenseless wren. And in Matthew 6:26 we’re told, “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
Ponder that a little bit.
We’re certainly responsible for our actions and are to work hard and make wise decisions. But we’re not called to work harder and be smarter on our own. We’re to seek wisdom from the Lord and his righteousness and then the king who owns the cattle on a thousand hills is sure to give us all that we need. And when our heart’s highest desire is for him then we are sure to find what we’re after. That means we’re called to live by faith and be holy as he is holy. We’re called to be the light in a dark world. The economy is crazy and life is full of twists and turns. But we are to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good deeds and honor our Father in heaven. Matthew 15:16.
So with that in mind, I hope you have a fantastic 2024. Look forward to working with you in 2024!!!
Booking projects in 2024 sounds like a long ways away, but in reality, it’s just a couple of weeks at this point. Now I wear a lot of different hats at various times and my project focus varies with the needs of the clients, but I primarily consider myself a photographer. What I enjoy most about photography is capturing moments in time in photos which can tell a whole story all by themselves. I’d love to help tell your story in 2024. But for now, let’s look at a few stories through my lens.
How does that happen
The adage, a picture is worth a thousand words is one you hear often. A single image can capture the viewer’s attention to draw them into the scene in ways that tell both intentional stories created by the photographer and imaginative stories unique to the viewer. Those stories may be told directly through the image’s content, composition, or style, but depending on the audience’s perspective, it also allows them to see their own story unfold in the minds eye. I may make another post about composition at a later date, but a single image can tell a whole story all by itself in a variety of different ways. I’ll share a few examples here and then maybe we can explore them in a little more detail to explain my thought process and what I mean.
Imaginative Story Telling
Let’s dive into these first two images together. Both are some of my recent work and the images both feature young ladies in very storytelling photos. I’ve had several people tell me that both could be book covers. Well, they could be, but what would the stories in those books be about? Now that’s very different for each photo.
In the first book, I have to imagine a farmer’s daughter reading a book one late summer’s afternoon and maybe telling the story from her perspective placing herself in one of the characters in the book. Maybe she even nods off at some point in her reading and wakes up in some antebellum time lost in the past. Now see the first part of that story can fairly easily be discerned from context clues in the image itself. But that last part is my own perspective because I know her dad loves history. A different viewer who doesn’t know that may have a totally different story from this image. We have both a story being told by the content of the image and the perspective of the viewer.
The second photo is also very storybookesque. This photo may even be the story the first girl is reading about depending again on the perspective of the viewer. For the sake of this example, let us assume that is at least part of the story from the book the first girl is reading. Another similarity between the two photos besides the young ladies in them is the use of light. This image features a setting sun behind the girl is back illuminating her and separating her from the background. The other features a light leak of a setting sun coming in from the right. These features help add to the feel of telling the story of a late summer/fall afternoon. The second photo takes on a little bit more of a dreamy feel. Now I didn’t plan these photos for this example by any means but I was very intentional about my light placement and the feel that I wanted to illustrate when I shot these photos. I wanted to capture the dreamy feel here in the image with the horse. I felt like at least from my perspective that this was the dream vision of this girl Clair in relaying the love she has for her horse and the bond that they share. It is me, the photographer using creative lighting and composition techniques to tell her story.
Commercial Story Telling
Jimmy Corley
This image is much different than the other two. In this image, we have a hunter, sitting in the snow with his back against a tree while aiming his rifle at some distant target. By the composition of the photo, we are drawn to his bright orange jacket and his sight line carries the viewer from the dark wooded area on the right across the image to the expanse on the left.
The story being told here is obviously of a hunter, on a cold winter day, but it allows the viewer to imagine what he might be aiming at. What does he see through his rifle scope? Is it a 160-class whitetail or could it be a giant elk? This created interest in the photo, makes it a very useful photo for marketing purposes. There was no specific client in mind when I shot this photo, but it could have easily featured the latest Leupold optics or Christiansen Ridgeline rifle or some other outdoor brand. I have published this image and used it for a client’s Christmas sales ad for firearms.
All images tell stories, but I think its important for effective images help tell good stories. Some just come alive to me more than others and some tell better stories.
Documentary Story Telling
Here’s another recent example and I’ll wrap up with this one.
Along with some of my commercial-type photos, seniors, and outdoor photography, from time to time, I shoot some rodeo and action sports photography. I love capturing the action found in moments in time that tell stories as well.
A few weeks ago, there was a bull riding event at the Evers Arena here in El Dorado, Arkansas. There were some great bulls and great riders. The whole thing was an event put on to help Colt Cates, brother of PBR bull rider Reese Cates, raise money to help offset some medical expenses from a recent car accident.
Well, the photo below is another one of those photos that tells a story but this one is not planned in any way. The photo is more of a documentary image captured from live unscripted events as they unfolded. There were lots of great action photos from the event, but this one photo speaks volumes to me and is unlike any of the other photos from the event. Partly because of the firm beliefs and values that I hold that give me and many like me a unique perspective on what’s happening. I won’t go into any technical details of how the image was shot here because this all happens so fast that there is no time for that. I shoot what I see unfolding in this type of situation. In this photo, I turned and snapped.
So whats the story
I’ll try to condense this down a little bit to just the story it tells me, but there is a lot there.
This bull had just been ridden and bucked off its rider. I forget now whether the rider covered him for the full 8 seconds or not, but I don’t think so. This was a pretty mean, rank, snorting bull who wanted some more action. He was not ready to leave the arena. You can see by the ropes on him that the cowboys had tried but not yet convinced him that his show was over and it was time to leave the arena. He hit the fence pretty hard just seconds before I shot this photo. The little boy running off had been standing at the fence when the bull hit it hard enough to bow the fence out and the boy took off running back to his mother a little startled but no worse for the wear.
I think he was mostly oblivious to any real sense of danger. Part of that is because of the strength of the fence but also because you can see his father standing firm and confident staring the bull down as he stretches his arm out to usher the little boy behind him. Nothing comforts a child more than the presence of their father. The father in this picture is protected himself by the fence also but should the bull come through or over, he stands watch, ready to protect those he loves.
It’s a powerful image because the world we live in is full of rank bulls and evils intent on destroying everything in their path. Some are as equally ugly as this bull, But unfortunately, some aren’t so obvious as a snorting bull. In this one image, you can see the purpose for which God intended husbands to fill in their roles as fathers. To take on the world and subdue it is what God commanded Adam to do when God created the family (Gen 1:27-28) and he blessed them in that context. It is the duty of husbands and fathers to provide for, and possibly more importantly to protect their families from the evils of the world. But it is the sanctity and safety God ordained in the marriage covenant which is the image of the love that Christ has for his church that does that. God never intended for fathers or mothers to go it alone, but instead, to be united in the covenant of marriage he blessed them in that context.
He created men to be strong and women to be tender so that men might stare down evil with the strength and faith he has given us and women to be equally faithful, nurturing, and caring for children to run to when evil shows its face. The two became one for this purpose in order to create a cohesive and complimentary family relationship. Gender roles and male headship are important biblical concepts under attack by the world for a reason. But when strong fences like marriage vows before God don’t exist, chaos ensues. Even then, when sin creeps under the fences it wreaks havoc on marriages. It requires men to be obedient guard dogs, discerning and ever watchful.
God, the ultimate good shepherd, built good fences. He formed the sanctity of marriage to surround this union as an image reflecting of his love for us, his children. Its purpose is never to subject women or for men to be used as purely providers, but to protect and provide for women and children and for husbands to be honored and respected. Men step up to the fence at the altar before God and man in a promise to love and to hold, to cherish and protect their families until death do us part. It is husbands and fathers who stand at the fence to guard their loved ones as a sacrificial last line of defense. But it’s those fences that are the boundaries for healthy families to exist in. They are only as good as the steel, the welds, and the concrete, they are made of. God gave us his word in truth as a firm foundation that can not be broken as long as we cling to it and build strong biblical marriages within to keep the world out.
The world doesn’t like that. The world wants to tear down fences, with open borders like our southern border with Mexico, and along with it, the family structure God intended. This is a major piece of Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter talking points. Our culture says “Men can be Women.” “Strong women don’t need men”. “Just live together.” “Traditional marriage is outdated”. “Masculinity is toxic”. “end the patriarchy” But it is the strong biblical foundation of the covenant of marriage that is under attack because when it fails, society falls with it.
The world does not want strong men to be the spiritual leaders of their families in the context of Biblical marriage. The world attacks those who do. Our society paints the father in almost every TV show as the village idiot. But without men standing at the fence in the covenant of biblical marriage always and forever, women are at risk. The world needs more Godly women (and men) striving to be more like the bride of Christ (the church) and less like the world, and whose husbands are respected at the city gate. (Proverbs 31:23) A healthy family cannot be built if either partner has one foot out the door. Marriage is the promised covenant that protects the intimacy building trust between husband and wife. Men have to boldly step up to the proverbial fence at the altar accepting responsibility to love their families regardless of what society says. And women are not subjects they are equal in submission to their husbands when their husbands are living in submission to Christ. It is therefore men who must kneel before Christ to stand against the world.
The world needs more than just cowboys. The world needs Godly Men, Husbands, and Fathers who will stand firm on God’s word without flinching at the angry bulls roaming through the world and without apologizing for what His word says on every front. Who will stare down evil as the last line of defense to protect their families? The world doesn’t need more manipulative, greedy, Beth Duttons. It needs more Godly wives and mothers, for children to run to and learn from. Those who will stand on God’s word with their husbands as one.
Storytelling Images Stimulate Action
Now some of that stuff may be more than you want to think about, but that can also be part of the role storytelling images play. That’s exactly my final point. Good images tell stories that cause action. It may be a thought to ponder or it may be a physical action or it may even be a purchase decision. Maybe the image below will make you want to buy a new deer feeder, a sack of deer feed, or maybe it empowers you to take your son hunting to teach them about the outdoors and conservation. But one thing is for sure that good images tell stories that invoke change none the less.
Now we all love cute family photos too, and not every photo has to have a deep story behind it. Some are simple stories and maybe personal stories that just highlight your life or lifestyle. And that’s ok as well. But all photos have a story to tell and not all photos have to be agreed upon to illicit a warm fuzzy feeling like puppy dogs and rainbow photos do.
Some photos though, like the bull photo, do both depending on your perspective. But with good photos, some scream at us, and sometimes they whisper, but great photos enact change. Like the old quote goes and I don’t know where it came from, but “a man never steps in the same creek twice. For when he returns, the creek has change and he is no longer the same man.” So, Imagine a world without images that stimulate us to be better people. Imagine a world where there was no tank man in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or no Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima?
There are volumes more that I see in the story of the images above and many others. There are an infinite number of other stories that need to be told. There are stories of true happiness, joy and powerful images yet to be captured that encourage positive hope-filled things in the world. I hope that you’ll look closer at these images and those you see around you to see what stories they tell. How do they speak to you? What do you need to change for having seen them? If you have a story to tell, and we all do. I’d love to work with you to help tell your story through my lens in 2024.
But for now, I’ll leave you with this, Its one of my favorite images. What story do you think is being shared between this young boy and this giant horse?
