semillerimages.com - Image of the Week 10.3.05 Harvest
Steve
This time next week, I will be on the road to the north. I have some
big expectations for my vacation, hopefully serendipity will bless my
travels. I am going to try my best to take as many side highways and
roads as possible in order to maximize my image making. I don't know
what exactly I am looking for, but a bit of Americana mixed with some
fabulous landscapes would be nice. A gas price drop would be nice too.
Some bad news... the image of the week from a couple weeks back, the
one of the three garages... they have been destroyed. Gone. I was
shocked as I drove the other morning to catch my carpool to work. There
is some massive renovation going on to the house that the garages
belonged to, so I guess they didn't like the garages. Although I have
taken a lot of building shots in the past couple years, this is the
second time that I took a picture of a building and then it was
destroyed within a couple of weeks. (insert scary music here) It's too
bad about the garages as I am sure they will be replaced with something
with much less character, something more homogenized.
One the 22nd of September, I used one of my early rise certificates and
got up at 4:30 in the morning to go shoot some pictures of a wine grape
harvest for a wine maker I have been working for. I have about 2 or 3
of these early rise certificates each year. It's unfortunate I cannot
seem to get up really early more often, because the light can be really
amazing, but seemingly the good light lasts for fewer minutes in the
morning than at sunset. I think it has to do with living on the west
coast, the east coast probably has longer prime light in the morning...
I dunno.
I drove out to Edna Valley and I could see from a distance the huge
night work lights blazing like a small sun over the grape vines. There
was a crew of maybe ten or so, one to drive the tractor with the bins
for the grapes, one to drive the tractor with the lights, and the rest
to pick the grapes. The whole scene was surreal, truely. The workers
blazed along the rows snipping away at the clusters of fruit. It was
like a work ballet, the pickers, the lights and the tractors. I had to
be at work at nine, so I only had an hour or so, with the sun peaking
over the hills at around sixish. I settled for one lens, a 28mm, so I
could get the subject and the background to give some context to the
images. Unfortunately for me, as the minutes ticked by to the time I
had to leave, the light kept on getting better and better. It was
frustrating and exhilarating at the same time.
The final product produced was as surreal as I experienced it. The
clashing light values from the sunrise and the freeway lights produced
some strong contrasts and colors that normally would not been seen
together. Color temperature redux.
All in all, I was just blown away at the skill of the workers and the
time they start the harvest. Something to do with the air temperature
when the grapes need to picked require the early morning start... think
about them when you drink your next glass of wine.
Here is the shot:
http://semillerimages.com/iow-link/iow-10-3-05-harvest.html
Take care til next time!
*steve