INTRODUCING YOUR TUTORS
TIM CLINCH
English born Tim Clinch is a professional photographer with over thirty years experience.
Tim works with many clients in the UK, Europe and the USA. His clients include most of the top magazines worldwide including Architectural Digest, Traditional Home, Food & Wine, Luxury Spafinder, Forbes Life and Departures in the US, House & Garden, Country Living, Tatler, Harpers & Queen, Conde Nast Traveller and Waitrose Food Illustrated in the UK, and a wide selection of European publications.
He has published and collaborated on many books, including Spanish Style with Kate, published in London and New York by Merrell. He has recently completed England's Hideaways with writer Meg Nolan for Rizzoli in New York, to be published in spring 2011, which involved five weeks struggling with the wonderful English weather.
Tim lived in Spain for ten years, in Madrid and Cadiz, before relocating to Gascony, where his collaboration with Kate began. He speaks fluent French and Spanish, and knows both regions intimately. These days, Tim is rather more of a nomad, splitting his time (when not travelling for work) between England, Bulgaria, France, Spain and his newly discovered passion, the wonderful country of Ukraine.
Tim's photographic philosophy is simple...keep it simple!
'I've never been one of those photographers obsessed with equipment, rather, I've always been obsessed with pictures.
In the digital age there seem to be far too many people determined to make things complicated...be it with software, profiles, megapixels...whatever, it seems all too easy to forget what it's all about......fabulous pictures.
As a professional photographer, obviously, I work with some pretty serious kit, but I firmly believe that I can help you take better pictures by means of composition, a few basic techniques and a few 'tricks of the trade' using the equipment you already have.
I remember the first time I met Kate. It was in the depths of winter. We arrived at Camont and with little fuss, a big curl of fresh Toulouse sausage was placed to grill over the welcoming open fireplace. A bowl of salad, a crusty loaf and a bottle of wine were placed on the table. Friendships were forged and a great time was had by all. It was NOT haute cuisine in any shape or form, but it was a wonderful and memorable meal.
This is how I want to present my photography at NATURAL LIGHT-NATURAL FOOD, like the way Kate cooks. Simple, honest, natural and beautiful'.
To see more of Tim's work please visit his website
KATE HILL
Kate Hill is a great cook, a patient teacher, a lyrical writer and the founder of the Gascon Kitchen at Camont.
Since 1990 Kate has moored her Dutch canal barge at the foot of this historic french farmhouse, while patiently transforming a nettle infested and bramble covered hectare into a trio of organic gardens. A towering pigeonnier became a guest house, its piggery a pantry and the 2 meter wide fireplace defined the ultimate Gascon Kitchen.
Kate acquired her deep knowledge of Gascon cuisine from her friends and neighbors in France- the artisan food producers. Today, when she's not tending bees or chickens, or weeding her vegetable garden, she's guiding a novice's hand in the kitchen, rolling out a buttery pie crust for guests, or challenging visiting chefs to explore beyond the kitchen's walls and into the fertile Gascon countryside.
An accomplished cook and teacher, Kate has studied traditional and authentic Gascon cooking, home butchery and charcuterie for two decades. She shares these life skills with students and professionals at Camont, with a big dog named Bacon, a black cat named Boudin, and all the guests that pass through Camont's garden gates.
To find out more about Kate, including details of her cooking classes, please visit her website.
JEANNIE CHESTERTON
As a child, Jeannie
Chesterton lived for many years in the Mediterranean, where she absorbed the sun-drenched influences of the regional food.
In the late 60's she studied at the Cordon Bleu school in London,
absorbing its classic approach to French Cuisine.
Since then she has cooked professionally; in Alpine chalets; on yachts
in the Aegean; in isolated lodges in the Highlands of Scotland where her
roast game (venison and grouse) was much appreciated. In the early 70's she gave weekly cookery classes to a group of Chinese businessmen in
Hong Kong. On her return to London she worked for some years in the
kitchens of By Word of Mouth, also running the Bollinger Tent at
successive Golf Open Championships.
In 1983, Jeannie and husband Sam moved to the naturally beautiful, wild,
yet accessible Sierra de Aracena, where they were soon immersed in the
local way of life; killing their own pigs and making their home produced
jamón Ibérico as well as chorizo and salchichón.
Sam and Jeannie and a steady trickle of volunteers gradually restored
the lost orchards at the bottom of their valley, and now organic
vegetables and fruit are grown on their farm by their close friend
Simon Clissold. Their mountain-top home, where the courses will be taking
place, is surrounded by forests of sweet chestnuts and cork oaks. In
autumn there is a plethora of wild mushrooms, and in late spring
wild oregano grows in vigorous clumps in the woods.
Jeannie teaches Mediterranean cooking with an emphasis on southern Spain's Mahgreb influenced food, as well as Catalonia's subtle cuisine, which embraces the use of picadas for flavouring and thickening sauces, and includes many unusual rice dishes.
For more information about Jeannie's cookery courses at Finca Buenvino, please click on the link below
http://www.fincabuenvino.com/Bed_Breakfast/cookery_courses.html