May – and I am over the Hill !

Although I started this blog last September, by then I had been photographing for this book for five months. Finalising a deal with a publisher was close but still three months away.
I had been certain everything would work so I began work last April in order to meet a proposed publication date of November 2014. It was only with a request from World of Fine Wine magazine for a four-part series of articles that I had to take the plunge of beginning the blog too. From then on, failure to complete with a publisher would have left me rather embarrassed and with not much to write about!
Still, all is well, Glénat will publish in five months time but it is all coming together at the last minute.
My deadline was extended until the end of June in order to make a few additions and we are now in the process of agreeing picture selection. It is a time for seeing other people’s point of view, listening to wiser heads, but above all sticking to your own vision.
However,its amazing to me that what seems like the best possible selection and layout on Friday evening looks so wrong on Monday.The removal or addition of one picture affects everything. The “marriage” of two pictures on a double page spread does not always need an obvious visual link but can create a statement of its own.
Deadlines are deadlines and decisions must be made, but the extension has allowed me to profit from the offer of a helicopter ride around the Hill and also catch up with very busy winemakers I need portraits of.
Shooting from a helicopter with no door between you and eternity is great when you have the light you want in the right direction and if its not too windy. Well I had to settle for two out of three but hope one or more of the end results will be make it into the book.
With me in the passenger seat on the left means an anti-clockwise circuit of the Hill. In the wind it was too difficult to hover and the views rushed past the camera.
It was all over too soon, just when I was getting used to it!
Thank you to my friendly vigneron in need of flying hours!
Judging when to fly is difficult, in a few weeks time the vines will be rampant, in need of secateurs and the lines of vines not so distinct, but there will be more growth and colour. In spring at least you have a good view of the soil and different parcels.I am not enamoured of the vines in the summer, they look rather dark. Autumn could be fabulous – I must start saving for that now…

Back on “terra firma” the Hill has enjoyed such a warm dry spell that growers have, unlike last spring, been looking forward to some rain and praying the frost would stay away. Fingers are crossed for a dry and sunny period for flowering some time soon.
Meanwhile I continue to work for magazine clients whose work has helped finance my commitment to the book.
After June, lets see what there is to report on the book’s progress, but I am cannot breech the confidentiality of a clients’s assignments by reporting on my work for them. Readers of wine magazines can just keep an eye on the photo credits to see what I have been doing.
Here are a few photos from May.