Tim Shand
The room – upstairs at The European/The Supper Club in Melbourne – has dark furniture, tables with white table cloths, and large windows, the latter providing a single source of soft, expansive, natural light. It’s perfect for photography. Add to this that I had just enough time with Voyager Estate winemaker Tim Shand for his facial expression to change from staged to more natural, aka charismatic, aka “are you still taking photographs – I thought you said just one more about ten images ago.”
This is one of my favourite portrait images and, indeed, one of the most popular. I’ve had more comments on this image than probably any other, saving perhaps for Iago. I used this image to accompany the article here. There was an apricot-coloured lamp-shade in the original image which I’ve subsequently removed; I like the shade and it added something but, ultimately I found it distracting. I also in post-production changed the wall panelling to match the colour of his jacket; if this was straight journalism I wouldn’t do that but in a portrait context I’m happy to.
—
Haven’t checked by I’m pretty sure that this was taken on the Sony A1. It’s definitely taken with the Sony 85mm f1.4, at f1.4.
—
I’ve followed the winemaking career of Tim Shand for maybe 15 years or so. A more astute winemaker you never would find.
