What a great time we had in Napa Valley this weekend.  The whole weekend was devoted to photography.  Saturday was spent studying landscape photography with the help of landscape photographer Dean Gufstason.  I learned so much from him.  He is an excellent photographer (click on his name to go to his web page) and was extremely helpful and kind.

Sunday, we journeyed up to the private Behren’s Family Winery where we literally had the run of the place.  I have lots of photos to edit, but I’ve put a few here for your enjoyment.

I’ll probably do a little slideshow later on and I may add some more to the blog by way of a light box, or something.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  Thanks to Mark Behrens for putting the whole thing together.  Disneyland for photographers, indeed.

We all had such a great time at a wonderful winery at the top of Spring Mountain in St. Helena, CA (Napa Valley).

There were a variety of models with many changes of clothes.  I brought some props (sunflower and bubbles) just for fun.

Then when the sun went down, we brought out the lights and had more fun.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend.  I have skads of pictures that I haven’t even touched yet, so I may be putting up some more as we go along.

Valentine’s Day this year was a little out of the ordinary.  The hubster spent most of the weekend at a lovely local winery cooking for a two-day winery release event.  The winery is called Paravi and it is located in Camino, CA.  It was a sit down dinner for about 350 people at 4 sittings.  They offered 5 courses…a pear, blue cheese and sugared walnut salad, butternut squash soup with creme fraiche, chicken stuffed with lemon scented goat cheese and asparagus, beef wellington with a wine reduction sauce and baby carrots and a wonderful chocolate lava cupcake with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.  Amazing meal.  I helped with the prep and plating.  I also got to take some photos.

Here are some of the salads that I plated.  I enjoyed working with the winery owners and the staff that were there to help (both volunteers and hired.)  It was a lot of fun and a LOT of work.

The above picture is my hubby and one of the winery owners checking the temperature of the beef wellington.  There are several other staff members washing a trillion dishes.  As I mentioned above, it was a lot of work, but it was very satisfying.