Landscapes of the Dombes - In the Privacy of the Dombes
I return to these waters again and again, long before the first bird calls. In the half-dark, the ponds of the Dombes breathe like sleeping animals. I stand still, listen, and let the place decide how I will work. This series is my record of that listening-a conversation with sky, water, and wind where time is the fourth element.
My approach begins the day before, when I study the rhythm of clouds and the temperature of light. At the shore, I work from a tripod and slow the shutter until the surface becomes a page on which the sky can write. Long exposures are essential to me: they don't merely smooth the water, they reveal the passage of time itself-those quiet minutes that slip between heartbeats. I often compose low, granting the heavens most of the frame so that the earth becomes a steadying line, a signature of trees and reeds that anchors the image.
I look for thresholds-the first gold at the horizon, the instant when blue yields to violet, the moment a breeze turns into a brushstroke. Neutral-density filters allow me to stretch a few seconds into something more than a glance; the camera becomes an hourglass, and each grain of light finds its place. I keep my palette restrained, favoring the dialogue between indigo and amber that dawn and dusk offer so generously here. Where clouds race, they paint; where water rests, it remembers.
My decisions are simple on purpose. One idea per frame. If it's silence, I remove the details that speak too loudly. If it's motion, I let the wind be visible, not by freezing it but by allowing it to leave a trace. I use gentle exposure shifts rather than dramatic effects; I prefer the feeling of being present to the spectacle of being impressed. Patience matters more than technology. I wait for the pause after a gust, for a migrating cloud to slide into its final position, for the sun to thread itself through a break in the canopy.
Back in the studio, I treat the raw file like a fine negative. I tune white balance to the memory of the place, not the thermometer. Dodging and burning are my way of guiding attention-small breaths of light and shade that shape the story without rewriting it. I avoid heavy manipulation; the aim is to keep the dignity of the scene intact so that a print carries the same hush I felt on the bank.
The Dombes is a mosaic of ponds and reflections, but it is also a mirror for the inner landscape. These photographs are less about what I saw than about what the water asked me to notice: that slowness has a texture, that shadows can be kind, that endings and beginnings share the same horizon. If these images invite you to pause, to breathe a little deeper, or to feel time moving softly around you, then the conversation has traveled from the shore to your hands. This is the privacy I seek to honor-nature's quiet voice, and the part of us that still knows how to hear it.
