Photographing Arizona's Wine Country

AZ Wine Country - Images by Pat Shannahan

These are my favorite pictures I made for a recent story about Arizona's wine country. We went to vineyards in Arizona's Verde Valley as well as vineyards in Sonoita to the south. For me, the most interesting part of working on this story was meeting the wine makers and seeing the work that goes into making wine. In Sonoita, we walked through Todd Bostock's vineyards at sunset sipping Dos Cabezas wine made from the grapes that surrounded us. In the morning we photographed Dick Erath walking though his vineyard outside Wilcox as workers harvested grapes. He started the wine industry in Oregon and is bypassing retirement to experiment with making wine in Arizona. In Jerome we hung out with musician Maynard James Keenan of Tool in his Caduceus Cellar. He is teaming up with Erik Glomski of Page Springs Vineyards to make Arizona Stonghold wine. These photos will be part of a AZ Mag edition dedicated to Arizona's WIne Country. We are also planning on creating a wine page for the travel section of AZCentral.com.

Pat Shannahan
@pshannahan
www.patshannahan.com

Concert Pano

CLICK HERE TO SEE INTERACTIVE PANO

Last night I tried doing panos from the pit at the Tempe Music Festival. The two main acts were Kid Rock and Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. It ended up being harder than I thought. Concerts have a lot of changing variables such as lighting and tons of movement. I wasn't abel to get a full 360 degree pano, but I was able to put together about 280 degrees of viewing. These were all shot on a monopod with a 8mm lens.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Here is a slideshow of images I made in Ireland while traveling through Cashel, County Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula, and County Clare along Ireland's west coast. The trip was everything I hoped it would be and more. We only spent a day in Dublin, opting instead to spend our time exploring the windy country roads and hiking along the coast. It wasn't too hard to leave the tourists behind and fell like you were having a real experience. I'd go back in  a heartbeat.

All of the photos in this slideshow were taken with a plastic Holga camera. A Holga is made up almost entirely of plastic. It has two shutter speeds, one F stop, and leaks light like a sieve. Why would anyone want to use this camera? The Holga takes photographs that look like memories-- something in focus but a little fuzzy around the edges. When you are using a Holga, you're letting go of almost all control and opening up your photography to chance. You can never be quite sure what light is going to be recorded on the film. Each roll has a few surprises on it. It's great for landscape photography as well a photographing people. 

I bought mine here from the International Center of Photography. I like the one that allows you to shoot at 1/125 of a sec and also has a bulb setting for long exposures. More to come on the Holga.

Pat