mon9AM - 6PM
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sun11AM - 6PM
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fri10AM - 7PM
sat10AM - 7PM
sun11AM - 6PM
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tue10AM - 6PM
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thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 8PM
sat9AM - 8PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 8PM
tue10AM - 8PM
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fri10AM - 9PM
sat10AM - 9PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
tue10AM - 6PM
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fri10AM - 7PM
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sun11AM - 6PM
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sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
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mon10AM - 6PM
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mon10AM - 6PM
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wed10AM - 6PM
thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 8PM
sat10AM - 8PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon9AM - 6PM
tue9AM - 6PM
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fri9AM - 6PM
sat9AM - 6PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
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wed10AM - 6PM
thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 6PM
sat10AM - 6PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 8PM
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fri10AM - 9PM
sat10AM - 9PM
sun11AM - 6PM
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sat10AM - 7PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
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wed10AM - 6PM
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fri10AM - 8PM
sat9AM - 8PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 8PM
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fri10AM - 9PM
sat10AM - 9PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
tue10AM - 6PM
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thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 7PM
sat10AM - 7PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 7PM
tue10AM - 7PM
wed10AM - 7PM
thu10AM - 7PM
fri10AM - 9PM
sat10AM - 9PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
tue10AM - 6PM
wed10AM - 6PM
thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 8PM
sat10AM - 8PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
tue10AM - 6PM
wed10AM - 6PM
thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 7PM
sat10AM - 7PM
sun11AM - 6PM
mon10AM - 6PM
tue10AM - 6PM
wed10AM - 6PM
thu10AM - 6PM
fri10AM - 8PM
sat10AM - 8PM
sun11AM - 6PM
What a difference a few decades make! The images of New York City were taken in 1970 (Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress) and in 2018 by Afif Ramdhasuma (from pexels.com). Earth Day has been celebrated on April 22 since it was established through grassroots efforts in 1970. It was a response to increasing concerns caused by smog (intense air pollution caused mainly by exhaust fumes), Great Lakes at risk of dying from pesticide runoff and waste dumping, and rivers that caught on fire (the Cuyahoga River in Ohio famously caught fire in June of 1969). It was also the year when monumental legislation was enacted to address all kinds of environmental concerns. ...read more
At Home | Inspiration
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If it’s true, as they say, that seeing is believing, then we at Mast Store would like to propose another entry to your quip collection: Doing is moving. “Doing” not only requires movement - “doing” moves you both physically and emotionally. ...read more
Local Flavor | Mast Family Favorites | Travel
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What is a library? It’s a big building with lots of books in it. But wait, it’s so much more. The library is a gateway to your wildest dreams, a place to learn, a place to imagine, a place to make friends. Today’s libraries are repositories of books, but they also are places to get help to learn to read or improve your reading, to improve your math skills, to listen to a performance by a string quartet, to watch a movie, to refine your crafting skills, and to gather with fellow writers. Yes, libraries are SO much more. ...read more
Adventure | Inspiration | Mast Family Favorites
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... Our favorite foods! Food is universal because everybody’s got ta eat! And the last two months of the year are filled with more than their fair share of family meals, work gatherings, special outings to favorite restaurants, tins filled with homemade cookies and fudge, and the anticipation of food traditions handed down from generation to generation ...read more
At Home | Recipes
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Even before we bought the Mast General Store, we were taken by the beauty of Valle Crucis. We’ve heard people describe the drive out Broadstone Road as traveling through a time portal. In the 1970s, fields in the river bottoms would be filled with tobacco, cabbage, or high with hay to feed cattle that were grazing in the summer pasture. ...read more
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The lucky few who have seen the Earth from a different perspective – astronauts - all echo the same viewpoint upon their return. Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and the first human to go to space, commented, “Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it.”
Behind the Scenes | Inspiration
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Mast Store’s ads have changed over the years. From the text-only representations from the 1920s and 1940s to the image-rich digital and print advertisements you see today, they are still tasked with communicating a message and sharing our values. We’re going to pull back the curtain, just a little, to give you a glimpse of what happens at a photo shoot.
First, the number of “photo shoots” that happen over the course of the year can vary. For weekly ads, we probably use our own photography at least 40 weeks out of the year. For those remaining weeks, we throw all the way back to catalog paste-up from the early 1900s using old-school graphics for end-of-season clearance sales and certain holidays – like the 4th of July.
Each ad is always a little different – the focus may be big enough to warrant a single photo or so focused that each product or category has its own “mini” shoot. And then there are the digital representations, which may be totally different than our print and in-store ads. These might be a vendor focus, a special offer, a new arrival, or even a location story. Planning is critical.
Here’s how it starts – for weekly ads, our buyers submit products that pertain to the ad focus. Then the brainstorming begins. Ad confabs sometimes happen by the “big rock” between the Marketing Department and the Home Office – especially when it’s good weather.
From there, the list of needs is made – do we need models; what about a location; can we take these in the studio; do we have a current photo we can use; are there other elements we should incorporate; what’s everybody’s sizes; (and our favorite…) can we take this biscuit and gravy mix out of stock to make it (let’s eat!!)?
Once that’s decided and all of the needs are gathered, it’s off to the shoot. For an on-site shoot, it can take anywhere from a half hour to 15+ hours (no joke, one shoot started at 5:30 p.m. and ended at 8:15 a.m.), but the average is maybe a couple hours. The “grander” the image, the longer the shot will take.
When all of the shots are taken, it’s back to the computer to review the work and to start picking our favorites. When the pictures are chosen, they are optimized, cropped, and resized before being dropped into the ad template. Whatever photo we take, several different iterations are saved for future use – horizontal and vertical versions, etc. In addition to weekly ads, you’ll find Mast Store ads in travel and visitor guides, magazines – like Southern Living and Our State, and digital publications like some online magazines and newspapers.
When we make it to the end of the process, it all begins again.