Spring Bonnets…for Men!
Romania 2012 Transylvania…not too far from Kalnoky Estate
It was last spring when my guide, Daniel Gheorghita (www.felixromania.com) and I spent two weeks on a photo tour of Romania. Springtime might mean newly woven straw hats hanging on a fence outside of a farmhouse, or it might mean a snow storm leaving more than a foot of snow on the painted churches of Bukovina. From warm days when we could sit at an outdoor cafe and photograph passers-by to freezing mountain mornings shooting red-roofed villages, we found remnants of the traditional Romania I had come to see.
I thought these hats were Easter bonnets for little girls, but they are part of the folk costume of Romanian men in this particular area. The hats are handwoven during the long winters by the people in the village. We stopped at one farmhouse, where not only hats were for sale, but also apples, harvested during the previous fall, kept fresh under piles of hay in a root cellar. Just like our great-grandparents used to do.
Romanian Farmhouse
This farmhouse is an art of woodworking with its carved, decorated doors and bannisters. Romanians have a history of woodworking as their land is heavily forested.
” In Springtime, a young man’s fancy turns to love”
Easter weekend is a time for family celebrations and I wandered alone on the streets of Bucharest on my last day in Romania. I spotted this couple and he spotted me, but he merely smiled and dipped his head toward his sweetheart. A perfect spring photo!
I didn’t do much to the top photos. I always saturate the colors, I can’t help that, can I? I did add a bit more fog to the photo with hats. I used a white to transparent gradient. The ‘fog’ hides some of the cluttered look of the farm yards.
The ‘lover’s’ photo took a bit of work. I wanted to delete all of the background, but found them sitting in mid-air after I finished with that…back to the drawing board. I must have four iterations. This one is closest to the original. The background is vignetted using the white to transparent gradient. It’s a good tool to learn to use. I made a new blank layer and put my gradients on it. If the gradient covered a part that I didn’t want covered, I used a mask to bring that part back. I made sure to keep the sign in the background to show ‘place’.
Love in Spring
This is my final try at this photo, for now. The pink color gives it a Valentine’s Day feel. And I like the motion blur. Which do you prefer?