I always tell workshop students that as much as I dislike getting up early, I rarely regret being out at dawn. Today was one of those exceptions. I was up at 4:30 this morning to get out into Napa Valley for sunrise. It was absolutely fogged in at home, thick clouds. I was hoping it was going to burn off and it didn’t. I waited around for over three hours. By the time the sun had started to come through a little bit, the quality of light was awful, and I just had to bag it. It was a complete waste of time.

A Dream Assignment

When I got this assignment, it was the absolute dream assignment. A major winery in Napa is rebuilding much of its tasting facility and they needed nine enormous prints for the nine new tasting rooms they’re building. One print from each of their main vineyards. And it’s an absolute dream. it’s the kind of thing I love doing. The problem turned out to be, three of the vineyards were spectacular. They are built in the mountains at the side of Napa Valley, while the others were on the floor of the valley. Absolutely flat, featureless, nothing of interest. And it’s been very problematic.

Photo by Bob Holmes

We tend to think that photography is just about taking good photographs, but the most important thing about most photography is the content of those photographs. It’s not enough just to take beautiful photographs. That’s very much a part of what I do. But the other element is showing photographs that have content and can show something that the client wants to illustrate. In this case, in the wine industry, vineyards should reflect what’s known as terroir. This is a combination of geography, weather, and a bunch of other things that make up the characteristics of that vineyard site. And the idea was to show these nine very different vineyards, and showing their different, terroir. In reality, five of them looked almost identical physically and it’s been very difficult to differentiate them. I’ve been hoping to work in good light.

The Problem

The weather’s been very problematic, particularly this time of year. When it’s hot in the Central Valley of California, the rising heat pulls in fog from the coast, which affects all the coastal counties. Sonoma County, Napa County, it’s what makes it great for wine growing. You get great diurnal temperatures, very cold evenings but very warm days. Which is perfect for most grape varieties, but it makes it very difficult to shoot photographs. We want that nice warm dawn light and I’m just not getting it at the moment.

Image by Bob Holmes

I planned to go out on this last weekend. I was just about to set off, and I googled the traffic. Then I saw there was a race meeting at the Sonoma raceway, which is right on the route to Napa for me. This meant all the roads were completely solid with traffic. It was an absolute nightmare. So that wrote the weekend off. So I went this morning, and as I said, the weather was totally inappropriate. That’s the way it goes, and I’ll keep trying and plugging away.

Producing the Goods

When I was working for national geographic regularly in the 1980s, you always felt a tremendous responsibility and that your job was on the line. I would go to Asia for three or four months with 300 or 400 rolls of film with minimal contact with Washington. And you had to come back with the goods. The legendary director of photography Bob Gilker used to say, “I want photographs, not excuses.”

Photo by Bob Holmes

And it’s the same for any client. You have to produce the goods. If you’re being paid a fair professional day rate, the onus is upon you to produce. And you just keep plugging away until you get it. Sometimes it’s harder than others, but you always have to come through and I’ll keep plugging away this job and hopefully I’ll keep working.

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