1. Report from our latest Elbe Sandstone Mountains tour
2. Our 2027 group Retreats - so far
3.Looking forward to the Cairngorms in March 2027
4. Recipe: Roasted tomato, lentil and red pepper soup
5. Bonus footage
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Hello there
The cranes have arrived, so we know it is winter, as surely as the first nightingale signals the arrival of spring and the first preying mantid, the closeness of autumn. Thanks heavens for the predictable regularity of Nature disinterested in innovation and disruption, Perhaps it understands the progress fallacy, has wearily witnessed the consequences of the Jevons Paradox in long since extinct lines that “got fancy” long before we humans emerged to make the same mistakes.
As much as I take comfort in the predictability of natural processes I’m not such a fan of it in our creative lives. They should be filled with the serendipitous, the contrary, the novel - even although most of these lines of pursuit are also doomed to fail. But only most - not all - and it’s the prospect of finding that viable new creative strain that makes the process of trying new things so satisfying and compelling.
It’s also ok to have fun. In fact, encourage it. Fun itself is a creative act and who knows where it may lead?
Our best wishes
Charlotte and Niall
Report from Elbe Sandstone Mountains tour
Tour? Not Retreat? Yes indeed as this one was for Light and Land - our second at the tail end of this year. Charlotte wasn’t working on this one, though, so it lacked a little something. Nevertheless, L and L had booked us into a nice hotel and we made the most of it.
Sächsische-Schweiz (Saxon Switzerland), as the area is also known, is a funny mix of cultural landscapes alongside, well, bizarre geological landforms. The flat-topped mountains, rock spires and labyrinths date to a time in the Cretaceous period (100 million years ago, give or take a decade or two), when the area was submerged in a warm, shallow sea. There, deposits of sands and clays accumulated to hundreds of metres in depth before experiencing tectonic uplift and later, erosion. What makes this area all the more fascinating compared to similar landscapes elsewhere in the world, such as the Ennedi Massif in Chad and Tassili n’Ajjer in Algeria, is that the rocks rise from dense woodland. Normally, this helps to generate and snag the mists that often loiter around the hills and valleys at this time of year. For once, though, we weren’t lucky in this regard.
I have photographed this area a number of times in the autumn, already, so the time had come to move beyond the obvious and employ some different strategies to describe it afresh. Colour Transects (with the colour swatches derived from the image) and Kaleidoscopes worked especially well, I think, while the Chocolate Bar treatment was well-suited to building details in Dresden.
For those with vivid imaginations, the erosional features of the sandstone conceal an array of alarming characters (below). While The Hills (might not) Have Eyes, the rocks here certainly do.
Now, while it may not be very apparent from these pictures, there were a lot of quite tough ascents. The nature of these hills is such that there is always a bit of a pech (Scots for the panting brought about by exertion) near the end of each ascent, often involving ladders or steeply ascending steps through narrow chasms before the relatively level summit is is reached. WIth English stiff-upper lippery, my L and L guests - Alec, Peter, James, Simon and Julian - got on with the task in hand, perhaps wondering in which world this was ever a two-footprint-graded photo tour. The rating is under review for the next time….
Dresden, in contrast, was flat. Delightfully so, after the summit-slogs we endured in earlier days. Even for those of us not naturally at home in the city, Dresden is a fascinating places- not only because of its history of post-War reconstruction but for the sheer extravagance of its facades. There is a lot to photograph - evidence of a once great artisan class - Handwerker -who chiselled and cast and built magnificent city centres. It’s real -world work that needs actual people with skilled hands - perhaps a new growth area in employment in the future.
I normally make Chocolate Bars with a minimum of 6 elements but opted for just 4 this time as each image is rich in detail - and are a better fit on the A3 page. The font is BulldachLettra otf.
The ornate facade of the Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski in central Dresden may not be an obvious candidate for a Colour Transect - ostensibly it’s peach and brown - yet a deep dive into the picture revealed a more complex palette than expected - and some deeply sympathetic colour combinations.
Having made three visits to Saxon Switzerland in the autumn, Charlotte and I are looking to run one there in spring 2028 so we can add some spring flowers, like this Hepatica, into the mix. We’ll keep you posted!
Our 2027 group Retreats - so far
In addition to our work for other companies and our Chez-nous - holidays for two at our place (see below) - we are delighted to offer these group Retreats of our own, too. There will be more about the Arran Retreat early in the New Year, so keep some time free for that.
I love the HIghlands in March, when the expectation of softer days to come is tempered by winter lying stubbornly around the summits and threatening to descend to the valleys with scarcely a moment’s notice. We’ll be ready for it, though, perhaps even welcome it. Beyond the lochs, moors and pine forests, this Retreat, spreads its wings a little to include visits to two of Scotland’s most beautiful glens - Affric and Cannich- as well as a wait beside the Moray Firth to photograph bottle-nosed dolphins. We will also make use of a red squirrel feeding site and visit the free-ranging reindeer on Cairngorm.
With lengthening days, relatively few visitors about and great accommodation and food courtesy of Charlotte, this is the ideal primer for your forthcoming photography season.
This is a rich, deeply-flavoured, satisfying soup that’s guaranteed to lift the mood on gloomy winter days. If you have time to make your own baguette to go with it, great, if not, finish a par-baked one in the oven and you’ll have a lunch with a hint of Mediterranean warmth.
You will need:
Whole cherry tomatoes, 500g (1 lb 2 oz)
Red onions, 2, chopped
Red peppers, 2, chopped
Garlic cloves, 4, pressed while still in their skins but with the outer paper removed
Chicken or vegetable stock cube, 1
Hot water, 150ml (5 fl oz)
Fresh thyme sprigs, a few
Olive oil, 45ml (1½ fl oz)
Balsamic vinegar, 15ml (½ fl oz)
Dried mixed herbs, a sprinkling
Sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
Small red/ coral lentils, 100g (3½ oz)
Crème fraîche, to serve
Fresh basil leaves, to garnish
How-to:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (160˚C fan) [350˚F/ 325˚F] Gas 4.
Put the tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and thyme into a shallow roasting tin. Drizzle over the olive oil and then the balsamic vinegar. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon until everything is well coated.
Grind over some black pepper and scatter with sea salt, then place in the oven and roast for 20–25 minutes. About halfway through, remove the tray and turn everything over before returning it to the oven.
The vegetables are ready when they are soft and lightly caramelised. Carefully transfer them to a large
pan.
Make up the stock using 150ml (5 fl oz) of hot water, keeping the kettle ready in case you need a little more liquid later. Add the stock to the pan.
Use a stick blender to blend the soup to your preferred consistency, then stir in the orange lentils, which will add some contrasting texture.
Cook for a further 15–20 minutes, until the lentils are softened but not broken down into a purée.
Finish with a swirl of crème fraîche and a garnish of fresh basil leaves before serving.
Bon appétit !
Our winter 2026 and
2027 Chez-nous brochures
Do have a look at our 2027 Chez-nous brochures If you want to progress your photography - and be treated like kings and queens - there really is nothing else like it. Let’s have a Zoom call to see what we can do for you.
Whether you’d like to visit us with a friend, with a partner or even by yourself, it’s always worth dropping us a line to check on availability. Sometimes weeks not listed in the brochures open up.
Please click on a picture to see the brochure.
Bonus footage: Ladybird-style Paray-le-Monial
If you follow MENUette, you may recall my interest in making pictures in less-than ideal photographic conditions. Specifically, how do we make an image in the middle of the day that still has some soul?
When I took this picture of the basilica in Paray-le- Monial, just over an hour from home, it was a sunny day with the sun high in the sky - just the sort of conditions we normally eschew. But I ran the RAW file through a new process I’ve been experimenting with and the resulting look put me in mind of paintings in Ladybird books from the 60’s and 70’s. If you’re not familiar with them, this was a range of inexpensive, illustrated books for children covering a huge variety of topics, designed to “educate and inform”. To those of us of a certain age, these paintings are deeply evocative, today.
To check out if this was a true or false memory, I asked ChatGPT to find some examples that approximated to the look of my picture and it came up with this, from 1964 (the year I was born).
In terms of look, I think it’s not a million miles away: the same wishy-washy sky; the same defined-yet-open shadows. What was even more interesting, though, was when I asked Chat to render my photograph with the look of the Robert Ayton painting in the Ladybird book, above. It chewed away for a minute or so then out came the result (below). Click: I was eight years old again - only with an image I (and, in fairness, Chat) had made 54 years later Annoyingly, I can see that Chat has made some improvements on my original composition - and even substituted the cars with ones from 60 years ago. My temporal disorientation is complete.
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Our best wishes, Charlotte and Niall
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