Business Spotlight: Salt and Sea

A clink of bourbon glasses brought commercial photographers Chase Heilman and George Ferris to Springfield from the Jersey shore.

Or so the story goes.

The actual events aren’t quite that simple. There was the chance meeting at a Colorado art college, stints doing photography at Macy’s in New York City and shooting nautical environments on the Eastern Seaboard, and a 24-hour nonstop drive on a mission to the Midwest.

“We sat on the beach and came up with this idea,” says Heilman, a Springfield native who moved to New Jersey after school.

Now stationed in a second-floor studio office overlooking Walnut Street, the duo is known as Starboard & Port. Their official shared title is co-captain.

Yeah, that’s fitting. And intentional.

The business name refers to the left and right sides of a waterborne vessel. It took them a week to sort through 100 nautical terms.

“People ask about the name all the time, which is good, because it starts a conversation,” Ferris says.

The business model gelled that summer in 2014.

The photographers – and Ferris’ wife and dog, Nima – piled their stuff into a U-Haul and arrived in Springfield in late August 2014. A few days later, they were on the company’s first commercial shoot. The scene was Big Cedar Lodge for BKD LLP’s 2015 advertising campaign. That meant fly-fishing and dining.

In a year and a half, Starboard & Port generated about 45 active clients nationwide for commercial and editorial photography. The focus is on products, lifestyle images, architecture, food and beverages.

The guys did 85 shoots last year. But no families, babies, weddings or senior portraits – “unless pressured by good friends,” Heilman says. “That market is overtaken by 300 photographers in town.”

At launch, they budgeted for $70,000 in first-year revenue. In six months, the goal was hit.

The photographers chalk it up to hustle and connections.

“I didn’t realize how many few degrees of separation Springfield has,” says Ferris, an Oklahoma native who never visited Missouri before moving to Springfield.

They revised the monthly revenue goal to $8,000, and by year’s end Starboard & Port had $120,000 in revenue on the books.

The company bills by the project. Size, scope and audience all come into play.

“It’s a weird science,” Heilman says, as he flips a pencil in the air for the umpteenth time.

Editorial shoots are easier: typically a flat $500-$1,500 based on the media outlet’s budget. The guys recently missed a call from Wall Street Journal for a job on that high end.

Commercial shoots are trickier and can range up to $75,000. Heilman and Ferris recently secured a bid in that amount for a county project in New Jersey.

“It’ll cost $25,000 to set up,” Heilman says. “That’s going to take up two weeks in May.”

For Morris County, they’re creating an image library of eight high-end event spaces that rent for $15,000 a day. They’re charged with setting up mock weddings and other events with about 20 fill-ins, and the photos will be used on billboards and other media.

Another high-pressure job is shooting biopharmaceutical stainless steel products for Asahi Kasei Bioprocess America. Described as “the GE of Japan,” Heilman says the Asahi Kasei job was one of the most challenging to date.

“It’s as big as a wall, and everything reflects,” he says of the 6-foot DNA synthesizers he affectionately calls “big shiny.”

Eli Kopteva, Asahi Kasei’s creative coordinator, says Starboard & Port was invited back to the suburban Chicago office for a second shot in March. The photographers have a two-day window before the custom products are completed and shipped.

“This is not like shooting for Macy’s. We don’t produce these in batches,” Kopteva says. “The next shoot for the same product might not happen in years.”

Photo requests are unpredictable – from “a cactus underwater with a scuba diver wearing angel wings swimming by,” Heilman jokes, to a dramatically lit bottle of whiskey. The portfolio includes a boat builder on the shores of Maryland, life vest production by a Jersey Defense contractor and car speakers made by Kicker Audio, a 2015 target client landed by cold-call.

Closer to home, it’s Garage Graphics’ work on a huge sign for the Bass Pro Shops’ Memphis Pyramid, Hotel Vandivort advertisements, pilot Mark Burgess’ book cover close-ups of rings for Justice Jewelers and beverages for Mother’s Brewing, Missouri Spirits and Scotch & Soda.

This year’s target client: O’Reilly Hospitality Management LLC. The business partners, both sipping on LaCroix, glance at each other in nervous affirmation.

“We’re hustling,” Heilman says.