There is nothing honest about photography. Truth is but a trick of the light. A reckoning is coming to Sol Ridge Vineyards. And her name is Jac.Conrad Kurtz manages the Sol Ridge Winery, a sprawling, dew-slickened vineyard nestled into the Santa Cruz mountains. Conrad is a businessman and a glorified caretaker of sorts, keeping the grapes growing and the wine flowing until his stepdaughter, Iris, lawfully inherits her late mother's bequest and takes control, something for which the shy, nearly invisible Iris has no aptitude or interest. In the meantime, Conrad is king, ruling the land and his handful of subjects - Iris, his chief picker, Senor, Senor's adorable school-aged daughter, Celia, a small seasonal Mexican workforce, three dogs, and four horses - with the iron-fisted authority and presumption of any monarch. He brooks no dissent, expecting obedience if not gratitude from anyone in his path. Just ask the dogs. Just ask Iris. Visits to Sol Ridge are by appointment only. Conrad carefully picks his visitors, who tend to be young and blonde. Jac, a photographer scouting locations for a coffee-table book on California vineyards, fits that bill perfectly. Her efforts to visit Sol Ridge for a photoshoot have been persistent but fruitless until Conrad finally gets a good look at her. After that, there really is little question for Conrad but to invite her up to the ridge and hope she spends the night. True, Conrad is perplexed and even a little unnerved by Jac's dark glasses. She never takes them off, even as the rainclouds coalesce above the ridge and begin to release their burden. He tells himself that Jac is simply self-conscious of the wine stain birthmark, pooling like blood in the hollow just beneath her left eye. But this eccentricity is no deterrent. Conrad's agenda for Jac is plain to everyone. Iris. Senor. Celia. Even to Jac. Conrad never stops long enough to consider whether Jac has an agenda of her own.There is history in the soil. There is wisdom in the vine. The light is a wizard of misdirection. It has agendas of its own, casting shadows as it illuminates. Jac sprinkles water from a bottle over a cluster of grapes and takes a photo. Conrad thinks that counts as cheating. She tosses him a smile."e,There is nothing honest about photography."e, Photophobia is a novella. While it is available for purchase separately, Photophobia is also included in a larger work of short fiction by Owen Thomas entitled Signs of Passing.
Autorentext
Owen Thomas is a life-long Alaskan living on Maui because life is too short for long winters. He has written six books: "The Lion Trees" (which has garnered over sixteen international book awards, including the American Writing Awards, the Amazon Kindle Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Book and Author Book of the Year, the Beverly Hills International Book Award and, most recently, a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards); "Mother Blues," (a novel of music and mystery set in post-Hurricane Harvey Texas, Finalist for the American Writing Awards and the Book Excellence Fiction Award, and collecting a Bronze in the Readers Views Reviewers' Choice Awards); "Message in a Bullet: A Raymond Mackey Mystery," (the first in a series of detective novels, shortlisted for the Best Mystery Book of the Year by Forward INDIES Book of the Year Awards and collecting a Silver from the eLit Book Awards); "The Russian Doll: A Raymond Mackey Mystery" (the second book in that series); "Signs of Passing" (a book of interconnected short stories and novellas, and winner of fourteen book awards, including the 2014 Pacific Book Awards for Short Fiction, the Indie Reader Discovery Award, the Great Southwest Book Festival, has garnered placements at the Paris, London and Los Angeles Book Festivals and was also named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2015 by Shelf Unbound Magazine); and "This is the Dream," (a collection of stories and novellas that explore that perplexing liminal distance between who we are and what we want; Finalist for the American Writing Awards and the International Book Award in short fiction, and collecting a Bronze in the Readers Views Reviewers' Choice Awards). Owen maintains an active fiction and photography blog on Facebook, Tumblr and on his author website at www.owenthomasliterary.com.
For the ninth consecutive year since he has been measuring his commercial success as an author, Owen has not won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Also, to great acclaim, he has not won the Man Booker Prize. Most recently, in April of 2020, Owen was not nominated for a Pulitzer.
Owen makes his home in Alaska and Maui, Hawaii. When he is not writing, Owen can be found recreating and taking photographs in the grandeur of these wonderfully picturesque locations. Some of these photos are posted on Owen's photo blog, 1000 Words per Frame.
