My family and I went to dad's vineyard in Bendigo, Victoria for Easter of 2004. We helped pick the merlot so dad could make his wine. I got up early on the Saturday after a poor night's sleep to take photos at dawn, using my new Canon 300D. My dad snores loudly. It was freezing cold, but the photos I took were worth it.

We started picking at about 8am, and it continued until 3.30pm, with a short break for lunch. Early on I cut myself with the clippers a second after mum said that we should be wearing gloves to prevent cuts.

The grapes had various problems. There was a fungus on some of them that we had to cut out to prevent the wine turning brown, which was caused by frost. Others were damaged by birds. I came across three bunches that had been inhabited by large female red back spiders with egg sacks. They were very timid models, but I managed to get some good macros of them anyway. During most of the day the young boy of another owner of the property was riding a motorbike around, like a mosquito.

My dad had set up his own mini winery at the back of the property, behind the shed we slept in, away from the cafe/function centre. The grapes were immediately removed of stems by a machine, and then pumped into a tank to be ferment for about 10 days. They were also pumped again later to mix the solution up.

We finished the day with a barbeque and easter eggs. Needless to say, I slept much better that night. I didn't, however, get up at dawn!

I gave my new camera quite a thrashing that weekend. Unfortunately I ran out of storage so had to delete a lot of shots to make room for new ones. I've since solved that problem by getting a portable hard-drive which can backup memory cards in the field. Grape picking is quite a messy job, I don't recommend taking your camera, new or not!

This is my sister next to the biggest grape cluster we found.

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