Blue sky, white clouds
Green grass, rolling mountains –
Nature’s beauty
Is timeless

I took this photo in New Zealand last year. We were travelling between Rotorua and Lake Taupo and stopped along the way to take in this beautiful, rugged landscape.

It was February 2015 when I took the photo but unfortunately it has mostly just sat on my hard drive since then. While I’ve always liked the photo and knew it had potential, I’d also taken a panorama of the scene as well which I edited first and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this after that. And so I left it until I had more time to experiment.

I found time yesterday to go through some of my archives and when I came across this photo again, I thought I’d see what I could do with it. I wondered what it might look like as a painterly, with a lot of the detail stripped out.

I’m pleased with the result. The colour and detail feel a little reminiscent of an oil painting but you can also still see the photographic structure beneath… it makes an interesting hybrid and is definitely a bit different, which is what I wanted. Think it’ll look good as a print too which I’ll do in a couple of weeks.

Photo and haiqua © CJ Levinson