Fred Rewey woud prefer you not take him seriously. That’s at least the general impression you get from Rewey’s online descriptions of himself.

Rewey is not the third generation cigar maker. Rather, he falls squarely in the category that includes many other new faces to the cigar business: a guy that just liked cigars and wanted to make his own. His bio previously includes being a public speaker, author and online marketing specialist. When Rewey launched Nomad in early 2012, it seemed like another case of just another brand. Three years later? Rewey has put out arguably the most consistent portfolio in the House of Emilio family of brands. Not only that, but along the way he managed to put together a decent following and at this point has a fair bit of staying power for a brand that is essentially a toddler.

Fred Rewey

This portrait was taken downtown Dallas, Texas using a Canon 1D Mark III and a 20mm f/1.8 lens set at f/2.5. The shutter speed was 1/160 second at ISO 125. The only source of light was the sun, which was directly behind Rewey, which is what is causing the rim light around his head and the backlighting on the smoke coming from the cigar. The photograph was color corrected in Adobe Lightroom and adjusted for color, contrast and sharpness using custom actions in Photoshop CC.

(The bio portion is written by Charlie Minato.)

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Brooks Whittington

I have been smoking cigars for over eight years. A documentary wedding photographer by trade, I spent seven years as a photojournalist for the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I started the cigar blog SmokingStogie in 2008 after realizing that there was a need for a cigar blog with better photographs and more in-depth information about each release. SmokingStogie quickly became one of the more influential cigar blogs on the internet, known for reviewing preproduction, prerelease, rare, extremely hard-to-find and expensive cigars. I am a co-founder of halfwheel and now serve as an editor for halfwheel.