The Wine Widow on photography
Gratifyingly, the panorama I have managed to film on my camera draws an awestruck reaction on the family whatsapp group. JEEEESUS being the general tone. I am quite proud of this little film, especially as I find the phone button counter-intuitive and tend to find I have filmed the ground. Actually the ground is, in this case, the point.
When we went to visit the Grand Canyon about thirty years ago Zam suggested we view it “from the other side.” We drove, for hours, we parked, we walked. And then we peered at a wide-ish ditch. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes” he didn’t sound it. “But in the films people fly airplanes through it and this….” I hesitated, thinking someone with a more athletic build could jump across it. We picnicked by the ditch but neither of us said it aloud until a long time later: we had actually failed to find something you can see from the moon.
My panoramic film shows a hole in the ground that is over 100 metres long and about 30 metres wide. Zam makes sweeping movements with his arms to describe areas for fermenting, bottling, storing, labelling… we nod as he explains entrances and exits and that the winery, on its incredible chalk plateau, has to be finished before this year’s harvest. JEEESUS we think, all over again.
Amazingly you can hardly see it till you come across it. But it feels like you could see it from the moon.
