Wine, Garden & Gun

Have you gotten your October/November issue of Garden & Gun yet? Check your mailbox, or your closest Barnes & Noble quick! This one might be a sellout with an incredible pecan pie gracing the cover and a guide to the 50 best southern foods. Don't read it hungry. No, really.

In those yummy pages you will find a feature I photographed in Delaplane, VA last month. Or the month before. Hard to remember these days. But it was a beautiful summer evening and I traipsed about Rutger's underground cellar with my tripod wishing someone, ANYONE was with me to go 'oh my God this is so cool' with. It was somewhat surreal, Patricia surrounded by barrels and barrels of fine wine in what felt like James Bond's secret lair.

I drove my truck the way it was supposed to be driven (not as a suburbanite bus of sorts, hauling sweaty children from activity to activity), up mountains and back down in search of the perfect images to capture this magnificent place. The sunset was casting a wicked pink glow and I set my tripod on the roof of the car, clambered up the windshield (in hindsight possibly dangerous since I was truly alone) and just kept shooting, Blue Ridge mountains to my back. Rutger had accompanied me for a bit to get his portrait then headed out for dinner and I just embraced the solitude and watched the sun set. Click. Click.

I stayed in Winchester, searching high and low for a place to grab dinner that the local serial killers didn't frequent (yes, we know I watch too much Law&Order) and finally settled on a slice of pizza in my room while I uploaded photos and got a good night's sleep for my sunrise shoot at Linden Vineyards. Yes, we photographers are funny about the light and I will even get up crazy early for the good stuff.

I headed off to Jim's at 4:45 am or something awful like that, and was rewarded with a killer sunrise over the rows of vines and grapes. He loves what he does and seemed to enjoy being out there pruning the vines. I wonder if he thought the same about me, camera glued to my face snapping away, yapping about the gorgeous light. 'Cuz I gotta say, I really, really do love it.

Now go get a glass of fine Virginia wine, a slice of pie and your new issue! But seriously, eat something first.