Diary of an Andrea Johnson Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of working with Andrea Johnson of Andrea Johnson Photography on a lifestyle photo shoot for Stoller Vineyards. The winery is a fantastic place to spend an afternoon picnicking or a weekend escaping from daily life. With 3 guest homes on the property and ample space for relaxation, it's a great Willamette Valley destination. Further, the hospitality provided by the great staff is nearly unparalleled -- many in the industry forget we're in the hospitality industry first and the wine industry second!

Our goal was to show people enjoying themselves around the various areas of the property to highlight these features visually. We will use this imagery in various marketing arenas - ads, website, tasting room video and b-roll, and distribution presentations. (We have also begun a video process to create a multi-media piece but more on that later.)

To pull this off required the following:

* 2 meetings to brainstorm and edit
* 2 full days of working with her excellent models (she prefers actors as they are more relaxed and I can see why!)

* 12 wardrobe changes
* 4 trips to Farm to Fork to get picnic items

* about a case of wine used for pours and re-pours
* patience and cooperation from the winery team and good attitude about being asked to model
* ability to load Adirondack chairs on top of a golf cart and drive it without spilling wine or food

* ability to run through field in flip flops
* Spanish language knowledge

Very difficult to pick a favorite photo from the shoot but this well captures the spirit of Stoller:

Here's the behind-the-scenes look at what it took to get it (taken by my low res Blackberry camera) -- good thing she's fit and has a good attitude:

My role was a hybrid between creative director/water fetcher/housekeeping/damage control. As for the last part, we had just headed over to one of the guest homes to shoot a "perfect" picnic when a combine truck arrived. I immediately ran through brush to avoid the dust bowl beginning and politely ask the driver to back out of the shot for 10 minutes. He somewhat understood me, but thankfully, Eric speaks Spanish and was able to explain why we were interrupting his work day.

The "perfect" shot:

The drive to stop the dust:

We ended up with about 90 excellent shots. Now time to get these into the marketing materials!