OLD SAYBROOK - Kristofer Rowe spends most mornings hanging out by the water, dressed in camouflage, holding a camera. Most evenings he spends at the Bee & Thistle Inn and Spa in Old Lyme, dressed in his white chef's coat, wielding his favorite knives -- the uniform and tools of his double life.
With more than 25 years in the restaurant business, Rowe is a prominent chef who creates "contemporary, distinctive New England cuisine" at the inn's popular Chestnut Grille and Lounge. He is also an emerging wildlife photographer who captures startling images of birds found along the Connecticut shore.
"I try to capture the emotion of the bird," he said when asked why so many of his birds seem to be looking directly into the eyes of the viewer. His photos of owls, egrets, eagles, hawks and his favorite, ospreys, among others, seem to reflect the souls of the creatures, as well as their habits and wild beauty.
It wasn't always this way. One morning in 2010, Rowe woke up agitated that he needed to go to work. His girlfriend convinced him that he should probably stay in bed since he was in the hospital just coming out of a weeklong coma.
Rowe was hospitalized with pancreatitis caused by a muddle of issues, including alcohol abuse. Although the root cause of his illness remains a mystery, the result of the scare was life-changing.
"I put down the bottle and picked up a camera," Rowe said over a cup of iced coffee, distracted for a moment by three glossy ibis he identified flying high in the sky through the window.
"How many people would know what kind of birds those are from this far away?" he asked as an aside. "It (photography) had never really been anything I was that interested in before," he continued, back on subject.
"Since I quit drinking, I have a lot more free time," Rowe shared, "I started experimenting with my camera. I'd put a feather in a vase and practice with different settings and different lights." For the first year, "I shot mostly black and white, artsy stuff, some birds," he said, "then one day after Hurricane Irene (2011), the wind was still blowing and there were two statues with birds on their shoulders and the ocean still wild in the background." The experience sparked his current passion for birds, specifically ospreys and other raptors.
"I don't do AA meetings," Rowe said. "I go out and shoot for a couple of hours, come back and process the photos; then I go to work." He posts new photos online almost daily and invites others to share them. He lives in Old Saybrook and takes most of his photos there as well.
"I'm completely self-taught," Rowe says, finding it a little ironic that people will ask him for photography and birding advice.
"I've had to learn photography, but also become a biologist, weatherman and an ornithologist."
To find the birds, "I have to know at what tide they like to feed, when they eat, when the sun is in the right place, how they take off," he continued. Although he can use his newly-acquired knowledge to find his favorite birds, "I can't control the subject or the lighting, and it's really hard to get just the right angle -- birds are twitchy."
What he can control is himself. "I'm a very patient person. That's unusual for a chef. I don't yell and scream," he said with a smile. While out one day, he saw a hawk swoop down and grab a rabbit, "I laid down on the frozen beach for about half an hour watching it." Often at low tide, he'll lie prone on the slimy rocks and take photos of shorebirds on their level.
"There's a lot of waiting in birding. It's kind of like a duck hunt video game; you never know what's going to pop up," he said one recent morning from his perch on the muddy green rocks below the Old Saybrook Causeway, his feet nearly in the water. His goal was to get the perfect shot of a diving osprey.
Watchfully waiting, blending into his surroundings, enables him to see things most people miss. The most unusual creature he has seen is a mink that lives in the causeway rocks, unseen by the hundreds of drivers, walkers, runners and anglers who use the causeway daily.
"I've been sober since 2010," Rowe says right up front, in person and online, in the hope that it will help someone else put down the bottle. "I take it one bird at a time," he wrote in one of his posts to his Kristofer Rowe Photography Facebook page, which he started in August of 2012 and to date has more than 3,100 "likes." Many people reach out to him through Facebook and urge him on, thank him for his inspiration and share their own bird encounters.
Many more people, awed by his talent behind the lens, thank him for sharing his photos so freely. Although not big business yet, he sells prints and notecards online through Facebook and his flickr.com/photos/coastalconn.
One photograph of an osprey with a bloody fish clutched in its talons won him a spot on the National Audubon's Top 100 Photo contest winners list. He also won Photo of the Year on thephotoforum.com.
He shoots with humble equipment, a 6-year-old Nikon D300, with a Tamron 200-500 SP F5-6.3 lens. "It's more about the eye," he says, although acknowledging equipment costing 20 times his $900 investment would be nice.
It's similar to the difference between chefs. The Food Network's "Chopped" show is a good example, and a show Rowe applied to to be a contestant. "Chopped" competitors are given identical ingredient baskets to prepare meals in identical kitchens, but use their own creativity and skill to achieve widely varying results. Rowe made it as far as the tryouts in New York, but they said he was "overqualified" and not "colorful" enough. He auditioned prior to 2010 and his venture into sobriety and photography.
Rowe started in the restaurant business in 1988 as a line cook in upstate New York while still in high school. He worked for seven years in the Berkshires, at a few popular shoreline restaurants here, and has been the celebrated chef at the Bee & Thistle for six years. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Linnea and David Rufo, owners of the Bee & Thistle, support Rowe's photography. A gallery for his photos is part of the inn's renovation plan. For his recent 40th birthday, they surprised him with a trip to A Place Called Hope, where he was able to hold an injured red-tailed-hawk and take remarkable photos of her and other injured resident birds in their care.
"It started out as a summer job, and I fell in love with kitchens," Rowe, the chef, recalls. Photography started out as a way to pass the time, and now "I just love my birds." From his photographs it seems the feeling is mutual.
To see more of Rowe's images visit flickr.com/photos/coastalconn, or his facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/KristoferRowePhotography.
Published July 26, 2013, New Haven Register