A few months ago I had the opportunity to photograph the Garrison Bros. Distillery in Hye, TX for the Houston Chronicle. The result was a group of images that I was really proud of.
It was one of those rare assignments when everything kind of came together. It was a lovely place with staff that gave me full access, and I had the time to spend to make the photos I wanted.
I got to see almost every step of the process of making bourbon from processing to distilling to barrels to bottles. I made a few portraits of owner Dan Garrison. I followed customers on a tour and watch them sample bourbon and explore the grounds. But my favorite image of the day was my product shot.
It’s simple, it’s clean, there’s no glare from flash, there’s symmetry, it’s one of my favorite product shots ever. I shot it in the barrel barn, near a large open door. The bottle was out on display at a tasting bar with barrels and a Texas flag on the wall behind the counter. I situated the bottle so the flag was in the background, and I could’ve shot it just like that, but the open door lit up the bottle too much, making the background dark.
Here’s where the challenge came in. If I had a remote for my flash, I would’ve just put the flash behind the counter and lit up the background easily, but I don’t have remotes. I have a sync cord that I use often, but holding out the flash at arm’s length to one side lights up the bottle more than the background and makes a bad glare on the glass bottle. I figured out that if I held out the flash and attached a piece of paper to one side, it would block the light on the bottle and still light up the background fairly evenly.
Anyway, I had a lot more work to do, so I got that shot and kept going.
Next up was making Dan Garrison pose for a portrait. I started in the room with the distilleries, but the background proved to be a bit busy (photo 1 below), so we moved to the barrel barn (photo 2 below).
The best part about the barrel barn is that I could shoot mostly natural light, since there were large open doors on each side, but in this case I used just a touch of fill flash.
After the portraits it was time for a tour group to come through, so I followed along as they delightfully sampled bourbon in various stages. As luck would have it, a few guys on the tour wore their tuxedos, just because they felt like it.
I gathered detail shots and wide shots along the way, trying to capture the unique facility.
At the end of the day, I felt confident. It was one of the few assignments that I walked away from really excited to edit. I’m always my worst critic!
Click here to view the Houston Chronicle story by Joe Holley.
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