Winter Rapture

Photo Winter Rapture by Jane Rosemont Several times a day I walk or drive past the golfcourse near my home. In the warmer months it is a moving portrait ofgolfers on a green canvas. For many, this is the quintessential scene of summer. It is nice, yes, to have this green space bordering my neighborhood, but for me this is the place to listen to "fore" warnings when I walk, and to watch for errant golf balls in the path of my windshield. Too soon for most, summer comes to an end, autumn arrives, and graduaUy the golf carts and golf bags are stashed away for the season. Snow begins to fall relentlessly and the green disappears beneath a seamless blanket of snow. The canvas is clear. Ah, winter! This is the scene that inspired me to puU out my camera. As the original photograph portrays, the landscape is stark, stiU, one-dimensional. Some might even interpret it as lonely. And yet, whenever I pass by this area I find myselffeeling exhilarated, giddy, motivated, joyous, intoxicated by the stflllife of my favorite season. Far from cold and lonely, it fills me with warm thoughts of family and friends; stoking up the wood-burning stove in the kitchen, playing cutthroat Scrabble games while drinking hot cider, and of course aU the festivities that occur during the winter holidays. It inspires me to take up new chaUenges, whether it's honing an art or taking a journey (not to Florida!). It makes me think of whipping up batter for chocolate chip cookies, promptly eating half that batter, then walking it off before I even bother baking. I chose this photograph for Fourth Genre because of my emotional attachment to it, and because it is easy on the eye. I Uke its simpUcity. For the cover ofthe journal, however, the photograph needed to fit into a fourpanel format. I scanned the image into my computer using Photoshop and I copied it four times into PageMaker, a page layout program. This way, I could play with four different images, choosing how to fiU in each panel. As 242 Jane Rosemont243 I squinted my eyes to see only shades oflight and dark and I balanced the panels, I gave little thought to anything but shape and harmony. The result brought new dimension to the photograph, even a lushness that, interestingly enough, better describes the emotions that the original image evoked for me. The manipulated group ofpanels have more focus, just as my brain seems to have more focus in the colder season. Previously in my career I resisted altering my photographic images and did so only under protest. With this assignment, however, I enjoyed the process immensely The manipulation of this particular photograph better communicates my connectedness with the image. I don't think that the original intent of the image has been sacrificed, but rather expounded. Although the lone tree in the forefront provides a new, precise focal point, there stiU remains for me the general feeUng of inspired winter rapture. When I walk by this scene, my footsteps crunching in the snow, how can I not think ofRobert Frost's "Stopping byWoods on a Snowy Evening"? The only other sound's the sweep Ofeasy wind and downyflake ...