Andrea Johnson Photography

 

Colorado winter adventures

Winter in Colorado is magical. The town of Breckenridge, with it’s charm, friendly locals, and walking access to the mountain brings back nostalgic memories of family vacations with my grandfather who was a ski instructor in Sun Valley, Idaho. In my mid twenties I worked in the snowboard industry and traveled frequently to Whistler, Utah, Jackson Hole, Lake Tahoe, and Mammoth Mountain in addition to local haunts at Mt. Hood & Mt. Bachelor. After a ten-year hiatus from snowsports while focusing in the food, wine, & spirits industry I’m now drawn back to the outdoors in a quest to balance these passions.

I arrived in Denver on Feb 1st, which happened to be the coldest day on record for that date (the high was 1 degree below zero Fahrenheit with a low of minus 17). Luckily the Hotel Teatro, a historic boutique hotel in the heart of downtown theatre district, is just blocks away from breweries, distilleries, restaurants, and bars with a free driver service anywhere downtown: http://www.vistatvdenver.com/detail/hotel-teatro.

Downtown Denver in winter

Enjoying samples of microbrews at Wynkoop Brewing Companny, Denver, Colorado

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IPAD tips – importing photos & videos

Photos and videos look fabulous on the ipad, but organizing them into tightly edited albums is the key to making your presentations powerful.  I love presenting photo essays on my ipad, and have received many requests on how to import, organize, and edit visuals for the strongest impact.   The wine industy has embraced this tool for presenations, both for consumer and trade – Jordan Winery recently purchased 97 ipads for their employees to best tell their brand story in an entertaining, engaging, and interactive manner.  I have additional specific tips for how to optimize the ipad for presentations using iTunes:

Below are the main steps you can follow:

1.  Save photos inside different folders on your computer, organized by subject.  The name you choose for the folders on your computer is how the album name will display on your ipad.

2. I suggest saving all these separate subject folders inside a master folder titled “ipad photos” or something easy to remember.  Make sure you keep the master and sub folders in the same location, since this is where you’ll synch photos to your ipad in the next step.  One suggestion for wineries may be to create a master folder with their winery name, then sub-folders with winery name – hospitality, winery name – winemaking, winery name – scenics, etc.  This will save you the embarassing situation of accidentally pulling up your personal photos vs winery photos at a presentation.

3.  Open iTunes, click on your ipad device, navigate to the photo tab, then from the  ‘sync photo’ option drop down menu select the ipad photos folder you’ve created and saved on your computer.   The sub folder titles you’ve created inside your master folder will stay intact during the transfer, so all your photos will be in these separate albums.

4.  If you want to change the photos, you’ll need to do this on your computer following the steps above, then re-synch the ipad, which will delete the old photos and add the new.  There’s other options to import photos via a special cable, but it’s more time consuming.   By detault, if you accidentally download a photo when using your ipad it’s automatically saved to ‘saved photos’ album, so you want to keep this separate.

5.  Uploading your own videos is even easier.  First compress the movie file as a .mov file format and save on your desktop, then simply drag and drop this icon into your movies tab in itunes.

After much research, I’ve found the best option for showing custom presentations is a company called Shows 4 Pros, an app which is customized for the iphone or ipad an allows you to customize order of photos, effects between photos (fade or dissolve time, or manaual advancement vs auto slideshow), and create multiple lists by category. They also have excellent customer support if you run into any technical difficulties.

http://www.Shows4Pros.com

Behind the scenes with Rex Pickett, author of Sideways & Vertical

Rex Pickett on Oregon from Holmes & Johnson productions on Vimeo.

Sideways author Rex Pickett talks about his new book, Vertical, and his love of Oregon wine country.

For the cover of this month’s Oregon Wine Press magazine, http://www.oregonwinepress.com/, I flew down to Santa Monica with Robert Holmes to photograph and interview Rex Pickett about his latest book, Vertical, the sequel to Sideways.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Would the author be similar to his now infamous character, Miles – or had success changed him to become more like his charming but philandering character Jack?  While Rex could easily play either role, after spending a relaxed afternoon chatting about Oregon, pinot noir, and the life of an artist I can see how Rex could be a blend of both, weaving autobiographical details into many of his stories.

Rex has not had an easy road to success.  Although the movie Sideways won an Acadamy Award for the best adapted screenplay, Rex only received a pittance of the profits. His struggles to get his first book published were monumental.  He still lives very modestly; the cover photo and interview are in his one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. I hadn’t read Vertical at the time of our interview, but I was curious how he would depict my hometown and the Oregon wine country I’ve come to know so intimately during the past ten years. Now that I’ve finished the book I won’t give away the details of which wines are featured or how the story unfolds, but I can say fact and fiction are balanced with comedy and tragedy, evoking a surprising range of emotions.  Oregon pinot noir is celebrated throughout the book, and a variery of artisanal wineries are mentioned.  How the book, or possible movie, will affect Oregon wine will be an interesting development. I’d love to hear your thoughts, feel free to comment below . . .

Rex Pickett for Oregon Wine Press cover & feature story Dec 2010

In conversation with Rex Pickett

A behind the scenes photo of interview with Rex Pickett about his latest book, Vertical, which is the Oregon Wine Press exclusive cover and feature story. The December issue will be available Monday at the same time the book will officially start shipping, though some copies of the book are already circulating around Oregon tasting rooms. For more insight into Rex, visit his blog at http://rexpickett.com/, and watch the video interview below . . .

First snow of the season – Allison Inn & Spa

What a difference a week can make. Last Tuesday I was in Napa in 85 degree temps, and this morning I woke at the Allison Inn & Spa to a beautiful dusting of snow contrasted by the golden vineyards.

A glorious sunrise at the Allison Inn & Spa with a dusting of snow over fall foliage, Willamette Valley, Oregon.


View from my room #307 at the Allison Inn & Spa, a picture perfect vantage from the loveseat overlooking fall vineyards dusted with snow, Willamette Valley, Oregon.


View from the balcony of my room #307 at the Allison Inn & Spa, Willamette Valley, Oregon.

Sometimes the only way to get the best vantage point for landscapes involves a helicopter flight or waking before dawn and driving an hour to wine country from my home base in Portland. Other times like this morning I’m pampered by staying in a room with a view and enjoying a brisk walk around the the Inn’s garden path to capture these scenes. After finishing my shoot of the Allison Inn rooms today, I’m looking forward to a scrumptous lunch at their renowned Jory restaurant and an indulgent spa suana & steam room session to warm up. Life is good!