Wine: In honor of Miljenko "Mike" Grgich's 91st birthday

[Mike Buckley]

Winery: Grgić Vina (translation: Grgich Wine)
Year: 2008
Grape: Plavac Mali
Region: Dingač wine region, located on the Peljesac peninsula in Croatia, near Dubrovnik

I made a photo a month ago in honor of Mike Grgich. Two of my posts in that thread explain why he is a luminary of the wine industry.

I made the photo shown below today (April 1) because it is Grgich's 91st birthday. My wife and I are planning a belated birthday celebration with a Croatian friend. The evening will begin with dinner, which will include the wine in the other thread made at his California winery and the wine in this thread made at his Croatia winery. We'll follow that with our first viewing of "Like the Old Vine," an award-winning documentary of his life story.

By the way, this is the first photo made with my new custom-built studio stand.

[Donald]

I made the photo shown below today (April 1) because it is Grgich's 91st birthday.

And a very fine honour it is. Well done, Mike.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, Donald.

I just came back from the store with a bottle of wine that you won't believe. You didn't like the square bottle and this one is worse. Coming soon to the monitor nearest you.

[Loose Canon]

Very nice Mike! You are getting dangerously close to commercial! I worry about that being the Rebel Outlaw Devil-May-Care Wine Aficionado that you are!

I had an optical delusion here. I was looking for a reflection under the label and didn’t see it. Somehow I expected one then eventually realized I was looking at the bottom of the bottle so no reflection is there! Better have my eyes checked!

I know we have the same interests in a different way. So I don’t feel entirely comfy saying anything. You do what you do so well its hard to say!

Happy B-Day Miljenko!

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Brownbear]

Lijep! (the word for beautiful in Croation) It seems that I have run out of words in the English language to express their beauty.

So instead I will just say that your images portray a standard for excellence and artistry that I admire greatly.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

You are getting dangerously close to commercial!

Yes, I tend to be more creative than commercial. In this case, I succumbed to the influence of my evil twin.

[travis4567]

Nice work Mike, as usual.

[Loose Canon]

Yes, I tend to be more creative than commercial. In this case, I succumbed to the influence of my evil twin.

How do you know the difference?

[deetheturk]

Another great image Mike

David

[John 2]

Very nice Mike and enjoy your dinner - as if you would need any encouragement.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, all.

How do you know the difference?

Good point.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mike,

I've been thinking about this photo because I think there is a lot to learn from it... Therefore I would like to ask just one question and that is if you would share your vision of how you put this image together - not the technical how-to just your vision as one might apply it to a landscape image.

First off it could be a super busy image but it isn't at all. With your lighting I can see that that the eye is immediately drawn to the wine bottle in the foreground... And then the light fades away, progressively darker from the wine glass to the two bottles on the far left. With a similar effect because of your DOF, but somehow you managed to do this with perfection not only for the sense of depth but also with super sharp focus to progressively softer focus, but still sufficient focus.

Plus there is something about the placement of all the objects in the image that works so well without making the image busy. Is there any particular reason for your placement of the cork? And for not including the bottom of the wine bottle in the foreground?

I also love all the curved lines yet somehow the lines on the sides of the wine bottle in the forefront are super sharp and straight. And the image is dark to light from left to right and also from the front to back (?).

I'm sharing what I see in your image because I'm trying to visualize seeing a scene as such but the specifics of my question are not important... ie; No need to answer all the questions within the question. I'm just trying to understand how you typically visualize and create the compositions of an image with the hope that I might learn from it and apply the same thought process to a landscape image. Even though one can't rearrange an outdoor scene, one can apply the same concepts when composing an image.

Thank you.

[Mike Buckley]

Great questions, Christina. I'll explain my thought process.

The first thing to decide was what to photograph. I often have only one bottle of a particular wine that I want to photograph. In this situation when I had three bottles, I wanted to take advantage of that and include all of them. I also wanted to include a glass of the wine, mostly to have an important part of the image that wasn't just a bottle and to include the context that wine, after all, is to be drunk. For unimportant reasons, I also wanted the wine in the glass to be the wine in the bottle rather than a substitute. That meant removing the cork. When I saw that Grgich's name is on the cork, I decided to include it as a complement to his name being so predominantly displayed on the wine labels and because the photo was made in honor of his birthday.

I decided that only one bottle would be the subject and that every other object in the image would play a secondary role. One way to ensure that the role was secondary was to limit the depth of field to the subject. However, I wanted a certain amount of clarity on the rear bottles and the cork so the Grgich name and the large decorative swirl in his name would still be evident. So, I chose an aperture setting that accomplished both goals.

Another way of ensuring the secondary role was to light the secondary objects less brightly than the subject.

The third way of ensuring the secondary role was to position those objects so they are connected to each other and only to each other; each of those objects is touching or overlapping at least one of the other objects playing that role but remain disconnected from the subject. To use a musical analogy, this image has a soloist and a chorus.

Positioning the secondary objects as a group also prevented the image from being too busy in my mind, probably more so than any other decision that I made. That decision helps us see the image as two elements -- the subject and the secondary group -- rather than five objects.

You asked about the cork. When I first positioned it, its immediate background was the reflection of the two labels. That was distracting, so I moved the cork so its background would mostly be the dark, lower part of the bottles and their reflection. I also felt it was important for the cork to connect with both bottles, sort of unifying them as a pair rather than displaying them as two singular objects.

Only then could I turn my attention to the subject. (It's interesting that the way my mind worked I was compelled to attend to the secondary objects first to properly set up the display and importance of the subject.) There was very little information about the subject that conveys its shape. So, I counter-intuitively decided to light the very front of the bottle's label slightly darker than its sides. That also helped separate the subject from the other objects because it is the only object whose front is lit from more than one side.

Having read all of the above, you and anyone might come to the conclusion that designing a shot comes really easily and naturally to me. If so, you couldn't be more wrong; designing is really difficult for me and is clearly the weakest of all my skills needed to make a studio shot. I worked and reworked the setup until I finally came up with a composition that I was happy with.

Or so I thought. If I haven't already convinced you that design is always a struggle for me, perhaps the following will convince you.

The image that I captured includes the bottom of the far right bottle and even part of its reflection. It also includes all of the shoulders of the two rear bottles and some negative space to their far left. When I got the image to my computer monitor, I was very disappointed. My only solutions were to redesign the entire setup or to use a crop that was completely different than I had planned. Fortunately, cropping worked for me.

For me, the planning process involved with making a studio image can be applied to making a landscape image. The only part that we can't control when making a landscape image is the light, though we can wait for the ideal light. Everything else can be applied to making a landscape: deciding what to photograph, what the subject is to be, which elements in the scene compete with or complement the subject, framing the scene accordingly, using depth of field and waiting for the right light to effectively bring those elements together, etc.

[Brownbear]

Thank you, Mike... Truly appreciated.

I'm sorry to have asked such a big question, only because it required so much of your time, but I'm truly delighted that I asked, and especially delighted that you answered. So much to think about and learn from. Very helpful! Thank you!

Great questions, Christina. I'll explain my thought process.

The first thing to decide was what to photograph. I often have only one bottle of a particular wine that I want to photograph. In this situation when I had three bottles, I wanted to take advantage of that and include all of them. I also wanted to include a glass of the wine, mostly to have an important part of the image that wasn't just a bottle and to include the context that wine, after all, is to be drunk. For unimportant reasons, I also wanted the wine in the glass to be the wine in the bottle rather than a substitute. That meant removing the cork. When I saw that Grgich's name is on the cork, I decided to include it as a complement to his name being so predominantly displayed on the wine labels and because the photo was made in honor of his birthday.

I decided that only one bottle would be the subject and that every other object in the image would play a secondary role. One way to ensure that the role was secondary was to limit the depth of field to the subject. However, I wanted a certain amount of clarity on the rear bottles and the cork so the Grgich name and the large decorative swirl in his name would still be evident. So, I chose an aperture setting that accomplished that goal.

Another way way of ensuring the secondary role was to light the secondary objects less brightly than the subject.

The third way of ensuring the secondary role was to position those objects so they are connected to each other and only to each other; each of those objects is touching or overlapping at least one of the other objects playing that role but remain disconnected from the subject. To use a musical analogy, this image has a soloist and a chorus.

Positioning the secondary objects as a group that is separate from the subject also prevented the image from being too busy in my mind, probably more so than any other decision that I made. That decision helps us see the image as two elements -- the subject and the secondary group -- rather than five objects.

You asked about the cork. When I first positioned it, its immediate background was the reflection of the two labels. That was distracting, so I moved the cork so its background would mostly be the dark, lower part of the bottles and their reflection. I also felt it was important for the cork to connect with both bottles, sort of unifying them as a pair rather than displaying them as two singular objects.

Only then could I turn my attention to the subject. (It's interesting that the way my mind worked I was compelled to attend to the secondary objects first to properly set up the display and importance of the subject.) There was very little information about the subject that conveys its shape. So, I counter-intuitively decided to light the very front of the bottle's label slightly darker than its sides. That also helped separate the subject from the other objects because it is the only object whose front is lit from more than one side.

Having read all of the above, you and anyone might come to the conclusion that designing a shot comes really easily and naturally to me. If so, you couldn't be more wrong; designing is really difficult for me and is clearly the weakest of all my skills needed to make a studio shot. I worked and reworked the setup until I finally came up with a composition that I was happy with.

Or so I thought. If I haven't already convinced you that design is always a struggle for me, perhaps the following will convince you.

The image that I captured includes the bottom of the far right bottle and even part of its reflection. It also includes all of the shoulders of the two rear bottles and some negative space to their far left. When I got the image to my computer monitor, I was very disappointed. My only solutions were to redesign the entire setup or to use a crop that was completely different than I had planned. Fortunately, cropping worked for me.

For me, the planning process involved with making a studio image can be applied to making a landscape image. The only part that we can't control when making a landscape image is the light, though we can wait for the ideal light. Everything else can be applied to making a landscape: deciding what to photograph, what the subject is to be, which elements in the scene compete with or complement the subject, framing the scene accordingly, using depth of field and waiting for the right light to effectively bring those elements together, etc.

[Jim35010]

You can flower it up anyway you want, but it is one hell of a shot...

[Mike Buckley]

Quite a compliment, Jim. Thank you!