A Local Wine Producer

With heavier rain forecasted for my region tonight and tomorrow, I took advantage of the waning dry conditions and the soft light of the mounting cloud cover to do a bit of wandering around town with my camera.

As I walked around, I discovered that a new local wine producer had his shop open late this afternoon. I couldn’t resist stopping in, chatting with him, and taking some shots of it.

At first, I had a tough time finding a good composition. Wooden wine barrels were behind glass garage doors, and I couldn’t get close to them for the kind of shots I had in mind at first. But rather than give up or attempt to fight the glare, I thought to use the reflections off the glass to my advantage.

Some interesting light fixtures were overhead. Had I been carrying my 24-105mm zoom lens, I might have attempted to get a very wide angle shot of the entire space with those fixtures at the top. Instead I was constrained by my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens I had on my camera. Sometimes, though, it’s those very kinds of constraints that can lead you to compositions that aren’t the most obvious but that are more interesting in the end.

I continued to work the combination of wine barrels and the reflections off the glass. Attempting a shot that was square with the glass, I saw a reflection of myself illuminated by an open garage door to my left. It was my opportunity for a reflection selfie, so I focused on myself and allowed for a little blurriness elsewhere. I was using program mode at the time, and I’m glad the camera automatically went for a nearly wide-open lens aperture.

I really like the double exposure effect that my reflection off the glass produced.

I’m glad I took the route I walked today—my happening upon this wine producer’s tasting room and back area was purely the product of chance.