FARO, PORTUGAL

The Slow Escapes - Food & Lifestyle Photography and Mindfulness Retreat

We spent 6 days in this absolutely beautiful eco Hotel, COMPANHIA DAS CULTURAS, located at Castro Carim. We basked in the warm Portugal sunshine, learned photography and styling and enjoyed the next level plant-based meals.

It was a retreat shaped by intention and presence. We gathered in quiet corners and open terraces, learning the subtleties of food and lifestyle photography—how to frame emotion, chase natural light, and style from a place of feeling rather than trend. Every surface became a canvas: rustic wood tables, morning fruits, the folds of linen in a breeze.

The meals were something else entirely. Every dish, plant-based and masterfully crafted, told its own story—from the origin of the ingredients to the meditative way they were plated. We didn’t just eat—we savored, shared, and marveled at the simplicity elevated into sensory art.

Between creative sessions, we practiced mindfulness. There were slow walks under fig trees, moments of quiet journaling, and conversations that unfolded like silk. Time stretched differently there—soft, deliberate, like breathing space between chapters.

In that rhythm of creativity and slowness, something shifted. I didn’t just learn photography—I began seeing again. The retreat left behind more than images or recipes. It gifted me a deeper way of looking, living, and capturing the poetry in the everyday.