Moving Blog

My blog is moving. I have decided to move the blog so I have more creative control over the design.

You can find the new blog at blog.mccoryjames.com.

If you are a subscriber to this blog, you will need to resubscribe at the new blog.

Balistreri Winery

I photographed John Balistreri, owner of Balistreri Vineyards, in Denver for Luxe Magazine. The location was kind of a crazy one in the middle of an industrial area, but I guess as long as you have a cellar you can make wine anywhere. They purchase their grapes from growers in the Grand Valley Viticultural Area located in Western Colorado. They are a small winery producing 4500 cases per year. One unique aspect to their wines is that they are fermented on their own yeast, unaltered by sulfites, unfiltered, and aged in American oak.

We set up the shoot in the cellar of the winery where many of the wine barrels were stored. It was rather challenging at times getting our lights to hit where we wanted them while you had huge stacks of barrels in the way. Luxe selected the first shot to be used in the magazine.

DoubleButter for Luxe

I photographed two furniture designers, David Larabee & Dexter Thornton, that work together as DoubleButter for a story on them in an upcoming issue of Luxe Magazine. DoubleButter designs some great modern furniture with some very creative twists. You can see more of their work on their website at www.doublebutter.com.

The shoot was a fun one. I had Ryan and our new intern from the Art Institute of Colorado, Derek, assisting on the job which really allowed me to spend the time talking and getting to know David & Dexter. They both had great personalities and were easy to work with. They also had great exposed brick in their workshop, which worked well as a background.

Here are some of the best photos. The first photo is the one that was selected by Luxe for the story.