Julian Grounds
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the above portrait of Stonier winemaker Julian Grounds would appear in a rival media publication, without my permission. And yet that’s what happened. I’d been aware that an article had been published on Stonier for a few weeks, but because I know the Stonier story and have tasted the wines, I had no reason to seek it out, or read it. I saw on social media though that journalist Lisa Cardelli had written about mental health in the wine industry, which is a crucial topic, and so I clicked through to read Cardelli’s article. It’s an excellent read, and is an excellent example of journalistic craft. While I was there though, the article on Stonier was served as a promotion in the side-bar. Again I wouldn’t have taken any notice of it except that, unbelievably, the image promoting the article was one of mine. No permission had been sought, no permission granted, no fee offered.
It was of course the result of a genuine misunderstanding. Misunderstandings, in the modern world of media and content, are always understandable, and forgivable, but are always in favour of the big guys, and always at the expense of the little. The irony is that I’d been drawn to this permission-less image via an article on mental health. Without wanting to be overly dramatic, the sight of my image on a rival media publication’s website caused my own mental health to drop. When the wine industry says that it cares about mental health, it’s a carenotcare situation. As F. Scott Fitzgerald drummed into me as a teenager: it’s not the deliberate that eventually does us in. It’s the careless.
This image was taken on the Sony A1, which is a charmless camera that leaves me completely cold, but which is a startlingly brilliant performer. It’s a camera that has a lot in common with much of modern wine, you could say. This image was taken at the (architecturally-significant) Stonier winery, with the door opened to let in side-light, on a Sony 85mm lens, shot at f1.4, which is a great lens but was too tight for this situation – I had to disappear into the barrels to get enough perspective/distance, which was the same problem that I had when trying to capture Tim Shand. With Tim I had to become part of the wall. For this image I drove two hours to the winery, spent a couple of hours on site, drove two hours back, and then spent three days writing it up and processing the images. It was effectively a full week of work. All for the love it; for no pay.
But I do love it. And it did make for an anecdote. And so, like the storied boats, we beat on.
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I don’t personally love these images, though the light is beautiful. Julian is a highly worthy subject too of course. When I first looked at the scene before me I thought that good images were going to be unlikely, if not impossible. So in that context I’m happy that they came out ok, and that they look professional-enough. There’s a debate in some photography circles as to whether you should let your subjects keep their wrist-watch on; some people argue that the resultant images can start to look like an advertisement for a watch, rather than as a portrait. The watch can be distracting. But given that it’s a sporty watch and that Julian Grounds himself is sporty, in this case I think that it’s part of the portrait rather than separate from it.
