Barrel Room Light Painting
Here’s something that you don’t get to see every day, a Barrel Room light painting! Yes, Joannie and I were light painting at a wedding once again! This cool, one-of-a-kind wedding image was created for Dan and Jenny. It was photographed during their wedding celebration at 7 Vines Vineyard in Dellwood, Minnesota!
The Barrel Room at 7 Vines.
Actually, I’m guessing that some of you might be wondering just what the heck is a Barrell Room? Well, as you can see in the picture above, it’s the place that they age wines, in big oak barrels, lots of them! It’s kind of like a big refrigerator, just not as cold. The temperature is tightly controlled to properly age the wines and oak barrels help give subtle flavors to the wine.
The barrel room itself is generally not very cool looking – well unless you light paint it. Then it becomes a piece of art!
Why Oak Barrels for Wine Aging?
Since I’m not a wine connoisseur, I had to go to the source, you know, the internet, to find out more!
- Aging wine in oak barrels adds flavor compounds–including aromas like vanilla, clove, smoke, and even coconut.
- The grain in oak allows the slow ingress of oxygen into the wine–a process that makes the wine taste smoother and less astringent.
- The barrels provide a suitable environment for certain metabolic reactions to occur (specifically Malolactic Fermentation)–which makes wines taste creamier.
What an Awesome Wedding!
Before we go much further, we should give a quick recap on Dan and Jenny’s fabulous wedding day!
Wedding party photograph with a 1929 Ford Model A!
Dan and Jenny were then married in a pretty ceremony officiated by Father Mike Anderson (for some reason, I really like that guy’s name!). After being announced as husband and wife, our newlyweds greeted their wedding guests in a receiving line at the church.
Dan and Jenny enjoying a romantic moment together out near the vineyard.
Light Painting in a Barrell Room
Once their wedding dance was underway, Joannie and I got to work on our very unique wedding photography specialty, light painting. We’re nearly certain that there are no other wedding photographers, anywhere in the world, that create light paintings like this at weddings. With all of the work that goes into creating one, we certainly can understand why. But since they continue to turn out so cool every time that we’ve attempted one, we’re going to keep creating them whenever we can!
Once we had the camera and lighting all in place, I went upstairs to get our newlyweds so they could be photographed in the Barrell Room. After a few images, we sent them back to their party and we got to work light painting every nook and cranny of the Barrel Room.
Dan and Jenny in the Barrel Room just prior to light painting it.
After a few hours of post-production, here’s their final one-of-a-kind artwork:
Dan and Jenny’s cool light painting in the Barrel Room.
Pretty cool isn’t it?
Yes, There’s A Movie
As I always do after creating a light painting, I’ve got a short movie with the images that I actually used in creating the final image, and then “the build” done in Photoshop afterward. It’s only about a minute long, but it’s pretty entertaining to see what goes into making one of these amazing images.
We hope you enjoyed Dan and Jenny’s light painting in the Barrel Room at 7 Vines Vineyard in Dellwood, Minnesota. Thank you for reading our blog post and have a great day! – M&J