Mondavi Night Harvest
"I swear I shoot other subject matter besides grapes but the wine industry had me so busy this Fall. Constellation Brands had me shooting no less than four of their big brands in Sonoma and Napa for a week. We had beautiful locations, great food and wine, met some extremely cool people, and even got to jump into the Russian River to cool off from the 100 degree heat that is typical here."
"These guys are always doing something cool. Last time they had me photographing Food Network's star chef, Justin Warner as he toured a Robert Mondavi vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands with winemaker Rick Boyer. Justin has a TV show called 'Rebel Eats' and he was out west to learn about Mondavi’s wine making process, because he is now a spokesperson for Mondavi’s Private Selection brand."
Last month I landed a Stills and Motion job to shoot Mondavi Wines in the Salinas Valley for the harvest season. Around here, machine picking starts at 3am in the morning while the night air is cool, so I figured I would be shooting at 6400 ISO with the lens wide open! I really had no idea what to expect with the motion footage in this sort of low light conditions. Usually the hand pickers bring stadium lights with them, but machine picking is all done by the light of the tractors. So my expectations were pretty grim for sure!"
"When the first tractor came up the hill and I could get away with shooting at 3200 at f2, I was very surprised I must admit. The video was fine at 24p and had it down at 50th of sec, simply because there was more light than I ever thought possible. The great thing about this kind of shoot, the more challenging it is the more fun you have!"
