Originally published on January 12, 2010.
Before the holiday craziness set in, I set down a list of “guys you need to know” in order to successful open and run a wine store. I’ve decided to make this a recurring feature for two reasons.
- It may actually be useful to anyone considering this particular avenue of “living the dream.”
- Recurring features make it easy for an over-extended blogger to come up with ideas for future posts. Can’t think of anything new and creative to write about? A quick scan of my recurring features and I can probably come up with some reasonably pithy fodder to add to the cannon.
So, on to the recurring feature….
You might consider a photographer a nice-to-have guy, but if you’re at all concerned about the look and feel of your communication pieces, a good photographer is a very important guy to know. And yes, I said “look and feel.” Remember, prior to living the dream, I spent 7 years at a luxury goods company so obsessing over looks and feels was a big part of the job.
So for the images I used in my holiday newsletter and the website, I called in my photographer – a colleague from my corporate days who. in addition to his official web-related duties, had been adopted by the wines team. His tiny wine blog chronicles his wine tasting adventures which usually involve a one month focus on a particular region or grape. This is a great way to learn about a wine and I highly recommend it because 1) it really is a great way to learn about wine and 2) I usually have something cool to sell that fits into whatever the immersion topic is – no matter how obscure.
Anyway, on to the pictures. I’ve seen so many web sites with not-so-attractive bottle shots. Given the space limitations, it’s difficult to get a picture that clearly shows the label. But given that the wine info is usually right next to picture, why bother? My philosophy is that it’s best to have something visually interesting that gives the general idea of the label. And that’s where Rich does really good work. His bottle shots are cool and clean and make me want to go out and drink more wine. Flick through his flickr pool, and tell me you didn’t think more than once about how to get inside those pictures.
And that’s what you want in your photographer – someone who’s images can insight the view to run off and join the circus….I mean the wine world. Which is not a circus…unless you’re at a trade tasting. Then it’s a circus.
All photos in the post courtesy of Rich Buchanan.