The Inspired Intermedia digital book collection
Issue link: https://inspired.uberflip.com/i/294492
12 Preface In 1996 Daphne Araujo opened the door to her wine cave, and I stepped into a beautiful room full of soft warm light accenting gracefully arched walls. A row of 60-gallon French oak barrels receded down the center. It was inviting and captivating. When I photographed that enchanting space at Araujo Estate there were less than 40 of these "modern caves," and few people had ever heard about them. By 1998 the paradigm was shifting, and within a decade more than 100 new wine caves were created. Building underground has not only contributed to the process of making fine wine, it also merits top marks economically and environmentally. Agricultural land does not have to be used to build warehouse facilities with high energy requirements. Some of the greenest projects happening today are led by wineries utilizing wine caves as part of their winemaking process. There are now many examples of valuable vineyards growing directly above the tunnels storing their wine. With my cameras I began a path of exploration and discovery using film in various formats ranging from 35mm to 4x5. In 2001 a switch to digital gave me greater abilities and productivity in photographing these dark, wondrous spaces. During the 1860s, about the time that wine caves were first hand-dug in Napa Valley hillsides, Charles Waldeck and Timothy O'Sullivan became the first photographers to record images made in a cave or tunnel. Waldeck made the world's first cave photograph in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, in 1866 and the following year O'Sullivan was the first to photograph the interior of a mine. O'Sullivan took a great risk when he carried his bulky equipment several hundred feet down into the Comstock Mine in Virginia City, Nevada, and used a pile of magnesium as a flash source to clearly illuminate a miner working with a pickax. Photographing excavated tunnels and caves in the 21st century is a lot easier than O'Sullivan had experienced. Today I travel light with a sturdy tripod and a camera that beautifully records existing light in these settings without added flash.