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Recipe: pear liqueur and pear garden cocktail

The nights are getting longer, but I’m sleeping less thanks to all of the goings on of fall. This is when events and people converge on my calendar in the same place and time, squeezed into the little spaces between shoots. It is the most frenetic time of year for me and also the most glorious – especially when the leaves are so good. I’ve been plowing through my latest photos because I hate having an enormous backlog to process. The way this season is shaping up guarantees a backlog at some point. Here are some photos from the road trip to Crested Butte and Aspen.

healthy gold stands near gothic

the maroon bells at sunset

confetti slopes

reds

There is something magical about aspen stands in autumn, as if they give off more light than is actually present. Our aspens (the quaking aspen or American aspen) glow when they turn yellow. Even when the sun isn’t shining on them, they appear like a beacon of golden light. This is usually because they keep company with dark green pines. Aspens are the first trees to move into alpine meadows and scree slopes around these parts. Although they can be found between 5,000 and 12,000 feet in elevation, we typically encounter them between 7,000 and 10,000 feet. Aspens create a nice nursery for pine saplings which grow and eventually overtake their shelters. So when you walk through the forests in our Colorado mountains and step from the shade of the pine forest into an aspen stand, it’s as if someone poured a bucket of sunshine on your head. Stand quietly and wait for a breeze to move through the aspens. You’ll be surrounded by the sound of a million little leaves clapping joyfully. It makes me feel like clapping too.

mount elbert (14,440 ft)

afternoon clouds moving in

sunlit

understory of wild rose

orange aspen with red tips

You can find the entire set on the photo blog.

But autumn isn’t just about the colors. Up the road from where I live is a place you may have heard of… Rocky Mountain National Park? I don’t spend much time there except to take out-of-town guests. We have equally excellent wilderness closer to our house without the throngs of tourons. While Rocky has some decent stands of aspen, it doesn’t get me excited the way the southwestern quarter of the state does. I’ll tell you what is a sure bet and a lot of fun to shoot in fall: the elk. Elsewhere you can shoot the elk or shoot the elk, but in the national park, you can only shoot them with a camera. So that’s what Jason and I did the other day. It’s the rut, when the bull elk are continuously running around salivating, bugling, trying to hang on to their harem of cows while chasing off any other male competitor. It’s exhausting just watching them.

sparring in the tall grasses

bugling

it’s all about the ladies

I love the sound of elk bugling, especially early in the morning when mist hangs low over the frosted ground in the backcountry. They don’t tend to noodle about too much during the daytime, but in Rocky Mountain there are certain locations where your chances of seeing elk are better than good. This particular male was dealing with two competing bulls, one of which stole a cow while the male was off challenging the other bull. He never rested long if ever. Just keep in mind that you shouldn’t approach or harass bull elk during the rut (or ever, but especially during the rut) because they can be incredibly aggressive and do you some serious harm.

i am aggressive

you’re not the boss of me!

The entire set from Rocky Mountain National Park can be viewed on the photo blog.

And of course, let’s not forget fall fruits. They are the subtle and sophisticated flavors that follow in the footsteps of their summer cousins. I haven’t quite had my fill of heirloom tomatoes yet (I don’t think I ever will), but I know their season is ending soon and it’s time to move on. I have a slight obsession with vodka infusions and the latest one is just in time for your fall bounty of pears. I did a little research and learned that comice or seckel pears are the sweetest and best to use for vodka infusions. They actually had both at the store which meant I had to try both…

comice on the left, seckel on the right

peel, core, dice

**Jump for more butter**

Last year after Food and Light 2010 ended, my exact words were, “I’m never doing this again.”

Less than six months later, I was emailing with Diane about schedules and who our fourth team member should be. Perhaps I’m addicted to running events, but I don’t think that’s the case. What I am addicted to is running events with a great team. That’s really important to me because if I’m putting everything I’ve got into a workshop, it makes all the difference when the rest of the team is doing the same. It’s exhilarating to work with people who have great attention to detail, have deep and broad knowledge and the skills to communicate it, care most about the students and their education, are wholly without ego, and are genuinely kind and caring individuals. This year’s Food and Light workshop was exhausting, but gratifyingly so because my team was pretty much the best you could ever hope for and then some.

dream team at frasca for dream dinner: todd, diane, and matt

Maybe I feel strongly about teaching because of my experiences in academia. The most popular professors were the ones who “entertained” students, but those were rarely the professors from whom we learned much. Jeremy (a professor himself, and a damn fine teacher) calls the entertainers “candy” because they make you feel good about yourself without actually having taught anything. We’re not about candy here, we’re about something heartier and healthier: true learning. True learning requires hard work, but hard work can be fun and more importantly it can be rewarding in a way that candy can never be. True learning is empowering and it gives a person the confidence to continue to learn and improve beyond the classroom or workshop.

A good instructor is a gift (as are good friends). Just look at these gifts!

matt presents on lighting

todd works one-on-one with an attendee

diane shows what she captured to a group

There’s the other half of the equation, and that is the student. The student cannot be a passive blob hoping to absorb knowledge and skills through sound and light alone. Regurgitation is not learning. Merely being present is not learning. We engaged our participants. We tried to make concepts accessible through tangible examples they could relate to. We crammed SO MUCH information into two days and yet most of our attendees drank it up and eagerly asked for more. This group was incredible. They asked questions when they didn’t understand. They opened themselves up in front of complete strangers to expose what they didn’t know and committed to growing as photographers, as artists, as people. That takes courage, dedication. Several have said they felt vulnerable and yet they were all so encouraging to one another. They worked hard, really hard. But they still found time to laugh, make friends, and enjoy themselves.

Most of all they were delightful, fun, and genuinely warm people.

everyone is paying attention to matt’s presentation

gathering around diane’s styling demo

manisha and diane tackle indian lentils and beans

**Jump for more butter**

I just got back from the mountains of Park City, Utah, to come home to the mountains of northern Colorado with enough time to unpack and repack to leave… for some other mountains in 36 hours. I AM NOT COMPLAINING. I had a lovely time at the Evo ’11 Conference in Utah. Rachael Herrscher, Jyl Johnson Pattee and their remarkable team managed the herculean effort of pulling this huge event off. Truly impressive and so much fun! So let me share some photos and keep the yammering to a minimum…

they held evo ’11 at the canyons resort in park city

the speakers’ luncheon hosted on site at the farm (great food)

taking the gondola up

the beautiful mid-mountain trail

Todd and Diane’s photo session at red pine lodge

taking the orange bubble up with genie to my workshop at the lookout cabin

inside the lookout cabin

the view looking out

**Jump for more butter**