Taking Pictures in Boulder

Last weekend, my husband and I flew to Colorado for a mini-vacation. The primary purpose was for me to attend the Food and Light Workshop in Boulder. More about that in a minute. (Disclaimer: All of these pictures are SOOC as in straight out of the camera. I am taking a temporary break from my addiction to Photoshop.)

Over the weekend, we stayed with my sister and her husband in Denver where we were treated to some of Phil’s fantastic cooking. Saturday for lunch, he served his famous sourdough pizza (pictured above) which we ate in the backyard with a view of the mountains. Because “when in Rome, we try to do as the Romans,” we drank grape juice with our pizza. It’s the way Phil and Bonnie always do it. Not sure why that reminds me of our family tradition (as in back home on the farm) of drinking home-canned tomato juice with popcorn. Hm-m-m-m.

After lunch, we all hopped in the car for a quick trip to Rocky Mountain National park. I have no pictures because I spent most of the time in the car with my eyes closed. The cliffs and the altitude combined to give me a bad feeling. All was well when we got back to the bottom of the mountain. I was even better after eating Phil’s Crawfish Etoufee’ for dinner.

The next morning, Bonnie made some biscuits out of the same sourdough bucket the pizza came from. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good picture of the cook.

My husband made an unusual move and grabbed my camera while we enjoyed the lattes Phil is famous for.

Sunday afternoon, the four of us went to Boulder where Billy and I checked into the Boulderado Hotel. The place is so old, they still have an elevator that requires a specially trained human operator. The rooms, however, have been renovated and were quite modern and comfortable.

Monday morning, I walked across the street to attend the Food and Light Workshop organized by Jenny Yu of Use Real Butter.

Also instructing us were Helen of Tartlette

and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple.

Somehow I missed getting a picture of Todd but he helped me with lighting on this simple cluster of grapes as well as many other issues I was concerned about. The workshop was designed with lots of “hands-on” time so we could put our new knowledge into practice immediately.

We took pictures of all kinds of fruit and vegetables from the local Farmer’s Market.

I took pictures of my breakfast…

and even  lunch at a restaurant. (That’s Croque’ Madame made famous by Julia Child or so I’m told).

It was a fabulous learning experience that included a chance to meet and learn from 23 other participants, most with their own food blogs. As one person so aptly stated, it was great fun to attend a workshop full of over-achievers!

I’m just hoping my pictures will someday be as good as many I saw last weekend from both the instructors and my fellow food bloggers.  A big thank-you to Jen, Helen, Todd and Diane for putting on a terrific workshop. I highly recommend taking time to check out their blogs for more pictures and details of the event. I know you will enjoy their incredible and unique styles of food photography.

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