Well I have not updated this blog in a very long time! In the last couple of months I traveled to South America once again to do some digital post production and shooting this time in
Buenos Aires, Argentina and Mendoza, Argentina. The job...... shooting wineries. I got the call from my friend Mark and had to decide that day if I could do it, it was a little rushed but spontaneity is exciting! We made our arrangements and in a couple of days I was at
O'hare heading south. It was nice a flight at 3:00pm no lines at the airport.........awesome. My connecting flight was in Miami so it was pretty easy I had the same experience about 5 months ago traveling to Bogota and
Carracas on a job with
Diageo. I arrived at the gate and they had just started boarding 1st class, perfect enough time to run to the bar and order a long island iced tea! The theory here was to get a nice stiff drink and sleep through the 8 hour flight as it turns out it was just a theory. I landed in Argentina around noon got through customs grabbed my bags and went to look for Pedro, the driver Mark had sent to pick me up. Sure
enough there he was standing with a print out of my name. Pedro was very cool, there was a language barrier that basically I had built from neglecting to really learn Spanish.....I want to change that. Pedro is a middle aged man that always has a smile and talks very very fast and very loud......I instantly liked him. I managed to get a fragment of a conversation going as we sped down the highway on our way to Palermo, an awesome neighborhood in
Buenos Aires.
I stayed in Buenos Aires for about 9 days until Mark came back from Bogota,Colombia then we flew to Mendoza, Argentina. From there we dumped our suitcases in our hotel room then jumped on a bus with all of our gear heading towards the Andes. Along the way we passed many wineries and took a lot of winding narrow roads and just took in the beauty of Argentina. Our job was to hang with a group from Diageo and photograph our adventures, the food and wine consumed along the way..........not a bad gig.
Our first day we went horseback riding in the foothills of the Andes mountains, we also had an amazing lunch with a few wine tastings. Soon we headed to Cavas a hotel in the middle of an enormous vineyard with pueblo style rooms scattered through out the vineyard ,we checked out the the hotel had some food and of course more wine! On our 2nd day we headed to the vineyards of Navarro Correas to pick grapes, photograph the workers in the vineyards and tour the winery. The winery itself is a work of art, a canvas of concrete and steel. We basically went through the entire process of wine making from the harvest of the grapes to the barreling of the wine. We spent about 4 days in Mendoza mostly traveling via bus and photographing the art of wine making, what an assignment!
