The Spiritus Americana television show is a ½-hour or 1-hour weekly series where I journey around the United States exploring American history, folklore, and artifacts while literally trying to capture the spirit of that time and place using my Spirit Shadow photography technique. At the location, I will incorporate the Americana artifacts, historical re-enactors, guides, and cultural experts, etc. in the creation of these long-exposure, nighttime photographs.

I’ll travel with an important Americana artifact -- a 4x5 Speed-Graphic View-Camera built in the 1940’s -- the kind you see in old movies with the black accordion bellows in the front of the camera and the photographer hidden under a black cape. During the day, I will explore the Americana of a particular theme like the Old West, interviewing historical experts, museum staff, guides, and cultural re-enactors like the gunfighters who perform for the tourists in Tombstone, Arizona. We’ll invite everyone to return at night dressed in costume (including the museum staff with the actual guns used by Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp) and more conversation will ensue about that time and place in American history. Before you know it, they’ll all be the models (posing with the real guns) in a Spirit Shadow image that literally captures the spirit of the famous O.K. Corral gunfight and the Old West.

We could do the same thing with historical re-enactors at Gettysburg, Independence Hall, Colonial Williamsburg, etc. The possibilities are endless and we might even discover some real Americana spirits along the way (there’s often some strange goings-on when I create these spirit photographs).

Possible Episode Titles: The Spirit of ‘76, The Spirit of the Civil War, The Spirit of the Old West, The Spirit of Jazz, The Spirit of 50’s Vegas, The Spirit of Disneyland, The Spirit of American Art and Artists (like Norman Rockwell, Hank Williams, Ansel Adams, The American Gothic painting). The possibilities are endless.

Aesthetics aside, these Americana Spirit Shadow photographs will generate tremendous cross-marketing revenue for The Travel Channel and Cox. There’s the potential for tens of millions of dollars in product revenue per season. My wife and I have already sold over a million dollars of my Spirit Shadow photographs through talking to customers one person at a time at art festivals throughout the country. The product is already a proven seller. Each week, this show will talk to hundreds of thousands of people at the same time… maybe even millions of people for each episode… and all potential customers. Moreover, these people will go to TravelChannel.com and purchase these Spirit Shadow images adorned to hundreds of products along with posters, lithographs, giclees, and limited-edition signed photographs.

Visit our website www.SheerEntertainment.com

The Spirit Shadows television show is a ½-hour or 1-hour weekly series where I journey around-the-world creating my mysterious Spirit Shadow photographs using indigenous people, guides, cultural dancers, historical re-enactors, etc. as the performers in the shots.

During the day, we’ll explore the spiritual-side of a location like Gettysburg, Angkor Wat, Cappadocia, Hopi pueblos, Machu Pichu, the pyramids of Giza, etc. (ala the Ghost Hunters). When the sun goes down, we’ll return to the locations with my old-fashioned view camera and create spirit shadow photographs that will “reveal the world as it has never been seen before”… paraphrasing a line from the Planet Earth series.

The Spirit Shadows television audience will witness the often-mysterious events that inspire the creative process and guide me to the compositions of the shoots. Using the “slow pan and zoom Ken Burns Effect”, the resulting photographic images will come to life holding television viewers spellbound with breath-taking colors pulled from sheer darkness … the galaxy illuminating the dark side of the Earth… stars painting perfect circles in the sky… and as one art critic best described my oeuvre, “haunting, lyrical depictions of landscapes and landmarks traversed by spirits.” That art critic also went on to call me “a real-life Harry Potter”. And like young Harry, I often find myself confronted by “strange goings-on” as I perform my magic. HD, infrared, and night-vision video cameras will record the nighttime performances, document the surreal things that occur, and allow the audience to decipher how these beautiful little mysteries are created.

Aesthetics and miracles aside, the Spirit Shadow program will generate tremendous cross-marketing revenue for Discovery Communications and the Discovery.com store. There’s the potential for tens of millions of dollars in product revenue per season. My wife and I have already sold over a million dollars of my Spirit Shadow photographs through talking to customers one person at a time at art festivals throughout the country. The product is already a proven seller. Each week, this show will talk to hundreds of thousands of people at the same time… maybe even millions of people for each episode… and all potential customers. And these people will go to the Discovery.com store and purchase these Spirit Shadow images adorned to hundreds of products along with posters, lithographs, giclees, and limited-edition signed photographs.

Visit our website www.SheerEntertainment.com

Pitch to Today Show:

Product: wow-factor photography
I've sold over $1,000,000 of my Spirit Shadow photographs by performing an innovative technique of hours-long exposures at night that shows people what they can't see with their own eyes -- little miracles that raise the human spirit -- like stars twirling across the sky creating artistic masterpieces, colors appearing at night from impossibly dark skies and landscapes, and most impressively, the photographic appearance of the human soul that makes some people "cry with joy" when they see these Spirit Shadow images. Plus, there's the miracles that other people find and tell me about in my photographs... Visit my website at R.Sheer.com
(P.S. - I'm great at live TV interviews. See my live PBS interview at RSheer.com ) Give me a call while you're on the website and I'll guide you through the highlights.