Vinography readers, I have a special treat for you, and for a change, it’s not more words on screen from me. Instead it will be stunning images of vineyards from Michael Regnier.

Michael Ireland Regnier is an award-winning art and commercial photographer whose work carries him around the world. He has a degree in photography from the Kansas City Art Institute, and has been working a professional photographer since 1982, garnering accolades from nearly every major graphic design, photography, and advertising publication in America, including the honor of being one of only six photographers in the world published by the Kodak International Photography imprint.

Michael’s photographs, prized by art collectors as well as commercial clients around the world, are unique, multilayered images that go beyond the reality of the image in the camera. He starts with high resolution digital photographs and layers in textures and colors until the image feels right, and then he moves into the tangible world, printing the images on watercolor paper and often covering them with encaustic wax. The final result is an image that is both a photograph and not a photograph, a landscape, but also something more.

Recently Michael began exploring the vineyard landscapes of California. While he doesn’t consider himself anywhere close to a wine expert, he loves to drink the stuff, though perhaps not as much as he loves the early morning light over a vineyard.

Michael will be posting one image per week for the next year that you can use for desktop backgrounds, screensavers, or any other personal and non-commercial use. Additionally, Michael will be selling archive-quality prints of these images on his web site, should you decide you would like to own any of them in a more tangible form.

These are really beautiful images, and a very nice opportunity to decorate your computer, so to speak. I would ask that you respect Michael’s copyright and do not under any circumstances use these images for anything other than your personal, non-commercial use. To be explicit, these images are NOT covered by the Creative Commons license that applies to other content on this blog — Michael has reserved all rights.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, sit back and enjoy Michael’s inspiring interpretation of the places we get our wine from.