Untouched by Time
Bukovina, Romania 2012
I turned the page of my kitchen calendar on December 1, but didn’t pay attention to the picture until a day later. Each month shows an impressionist painting and December showed a single haystack painted by Monet. I was drinking my coffee when my eye fell on the picture and Eureka! I remembered that I, too, had pictures of haystacks.
From the first time I saw Romanian haystacks, I was entranced by them. They have a pointy gumdrop shape unlike the haystacks we made on our farm in South Carolina. Ours were rounded on top. But we didn’t get snow like they do in Bukovina. To me, the Romanian haystacks resemble little peasant dolls…something like matushkas (nesting Russian dolls).
Yesterday I found the haystacks among my Romania files. Most were shot on an overcast day. No beautiful sunlight and shadows that Monet shows in his many, many haystack scenes. The photo above is pretty much as shot. I liked the scene then and I like it now. But with the magic of Snap Art 4, I knew I could enhance it to imitate Monet’s masterpiece, even though that may seem a sacrilege to some.
Homage to Monet
Snap Art 4 does about the same thing that version 3 does, but the new interface makes it easier and quicker to use. I love quick. The software is amazing. It picked up the blue shadows of the snow beautifully. I did put a few splashes of color on the haystacks just to give the software something to work with.
Daniel Gheorghita was my guide in Romania. Daniel is a photographer as well and we had fun together. Daniel is young, energetic and knowledgeable. He is a great companion. I highly recommend him. www.covinnus.com