The next opportunity to see WINE ART
in San Diego, Feb. 5, 2012
Heart di Vite to benefit UCSD Environmental Studies.
in Yountville, CA Hope & Grace Tasting Salon beginning March 2012.
The art of our inner world caught by a camera offers compelling beauty and inspiring images.
CUSTOM PHOTOGRAPHY -impressions of wine through a microscope – capturing unique moments in time in the life of a wine. You can see some examples of the incredible inner world of wine at these galleries:
INDIVIDUAL PHOTO GALLERIES can be accessed by clicking on the name:
Portfolio of current tangible inventory for purchase
Wine Art: white wines, pinot noir, petite sirah
Photographs of wine have taken honors in the NIKON Small World and OLYMPUS Bioscapes competitions.
Examples of the design use of these images:
Wine Labels for Red Car Pearl 
BOOK COVER 
CD COVERS
Designed by Brooks Cole 
How did I get started as a photographer?
I first used the microscope as a medical scientist seeking to understand how normal cells become malignant and to better diagnose human leukemias while on the faculty at the University of California Medical School (UCSF).
A photographic exhibit of brain chemicals at the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park awakened me to the reality that molecules had beauty and that the microscope could be used to create art. I had always dabbled in some kind of art form – pottery, sculpture, painting. Now I found a new medium – photography.
Life began revealing itself in new ways as I began photographing the chemicals in my lab – vitamins, minerals, hormones, etc. After a father of a child with leukemia asked me to photograph his son’s cells, I soon began giving “inner space” slide shows to children with cancer while they were waiting in the pediatric oncology clinic for their chemotherapy.
Wine Up Close
A colleague connected me with Sterling Vineyards, which had an artist-in-residence program. In preparation for my interview I photographed my first wine – a 1978 Sterling merlot. When the winemaker said the picture looked like the wine tasted I was hooked on the inner world of wine ever since.
As artist-in-residence I spent two years working with the winemakers, photographing their questions – what would wine from a mountain vineyard look like compared to valley floor, what about changes during aging. Too numerous to mention here, over the years patterns emerged that I could interpret related to winemaking techniques like malolactic fermentation or ageability. And these photographs were certainly intriguing to the wine industry. But are they useful? Do they offer practical applications from science or are they only art or artifact? Always the questions of what are we seeing plus the dilemma to interpret art and science. For sure, we are witnessing WINE’S INNER BEAUTY.
The inner beauty, to me, is perhaps related to the spirit of the wine or winemaker. Clues to life and death are certainly evident in some wines while there are exquisitely beautiful wines and simple ones. I’ve always seen them as a visual language or textural expression of a wine. They should be on every wine label – drink this if you want something complex, this one is light. See for yourself the beauty in the bottle.
My first book is out – Wine’s Hidden Beauty – it bridges the art, science and spirituality of wine. You can order your autographed copy here. My photography has won awards from both Nikon and Olympus and has appeared in Scientific American, San Francisco Chronicle, The World of Fine Wine, science text books and many wine publications. The work has been shown at Sterling Vineyard, Grgich Hills Cellars, Napa Valley Museum, Barry Singer Gallery, Lawrence Hall of Science, and Olympus’ 2009 Bioscapes Museum Tour.
Microscopic Patterns, a Hidden Code?
Each family of chemicals – wine, minerals, vitamins, seems to display different kinds of microscopic patterns, I began questing for the ‘meaning in the molecules.’ Sometimes compared to Emoto’s water crystals, these images offer clues to ‘divine design’ not to be confused with creationism. Rather they bear witness to an exquisite universe within us and of which we are a part. Water is the simplest expression.
For the most part I have used these images to teach about life. Seeing a photograph of caffeine, some of my students have kicked coffee. Hearing about, and seeing, the art and soul of wine, others said now they understand why wine has been used in sacred rituals for thousands of years. Images from the invisible world massage the imagination and inner knowing.
To me, these images make more real the mysterious; they help us understand experientially, if not intellectually. They offer an AHA moment! I feel grateful that I have been fortunate to have my scientific blinders removed as I traveled into these interior landscapes.
What I am gleaning from these images – that inner visions from the shaman and earlier times perhaps included seeing our molecules. Of course they weren’t named but were seen and included as part of sacred art and traditions. More to come.
Molecular photography captures a world invisible to the naked eye…. It opens the mysteries to molecules and cells. It is art based on reality, not an artist’s imagined representation. Images tell a story or act as a portrait. They may even communicate scientific information visually so it is more easily understood, then it becomes a teaching tool.
John Naisbitt ~ High Tech, High Touch: Technology and Our Search for Meaning
HOW THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE TAKEN
Many of the photographs on this website were taken with an interference light microscope which is basically a light microscope equipped with two prisms. The prisms break white light into its rainbow of colors. The material on the glass microscope slide that I am photographing also may refract the light. The prisms add another dimension, beauty, texture and visibility to the stuff of life. I shoot the most dramatic view, the most typical and the most unusual.
The forms and shapes are a result of the chemical nature and ‘collaboration’ of the molecules in the wine or substance photographed. Most would be colorless except for the prismatic display of colors, my ‘painting with light.’
All photographs through the microscope are taken with 35 mm film (yes, film). I have a few original Cibachrome or Ilfahchrome prints which are made directly from slide film, no computer manipulation. However as film is becoming obsolete we take advantage of digital expression to produce all other types of prints – photographic prints and giclee reproductions on fine art paper or canvas. Photographs of scenery and the visible world are taken with a Canon digital camera.
Custom prints can be ordered in almost any size and medium. They provide unique compelling images as contemporary art or perhaps as ‘molecules with meaning.’ The life story of wine and the vineyards offers visually exciting educational media.
Sondra Barrett is accepting new commissions which may be based on current work or a new concept. Each commission or limited edition photograph includes a signed Certificate of Authenticity guaranteeing the provenance of the photograph.
My photography through the microscope has won awards from both Nikon and Olympus and has appeared in Scientific American, San Francisco Chronicle, The World of Fine Wine, science text books and numerous wine publications. The work has been shown at Alpha Omega Winery, Sterling Vineyards, Grgich Hills Estate, Napa Valley Museum, Barry Singer Gallery, Lawrence Hall of Science, Diablo Art Gallery, American Wine Expo, Society of Wine Educators, Earthrise Retreat Center, Copia, and Olympus’ 2009 Bioscapes Museum Tour.
