#Șureanu

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 The Sounds of the Șureanu mountains. Two dogs on a hillside of Costești-Deal barking one in response to the other. One was tied beneath a haystack (the guardian of the vegetable garden). The other was roaming the farm grounds about 300 metres lower (the unchained guardian of the neighbouring farm).

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016

Mai stă lumea pe aici? Mai... Pe-aicea mai sunt patru căși. Mai este Ion, Florin, Onicu, și Tăftău și Marian. Sunt și copii mici ? Nu mai. Care au copiii mici acum, au cumpărat căși în sat. Deci cei cu copii de școală s-au dus. Nu mai! Acolo o fost școala. Ați trecut pă lângă ea. Acuma 50 de ani. Și pe acolo sus, acolo erau trei căși.

Do people still live here?

‘ still do. You can still find four more households around here. Ion, Florin, Onicu, and Tăftău and Marian are still living here.

Are there also small children here?

Not anymore. Those who have small children have bought houses in the village.

So those who had school-age children have left?

No more. They don’t live here anymore. Over there, there used to be a school. - You passed by it.- It was a school 50 years ago. And up there, there used to be another three households.

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 A dog with a curious tail-wagging welcome and an insistent bark-full goodbye is part of the way around this peripheral farm. The young plum orchard on the other side of the farm is empty and almost leafless. Winter cold came early this autumn.

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 A house on the southern side of the village built from red (probably hand-made) brick

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Strasbourg. France. 2016 I have been reading a lot lately the monographs and trail guidebooks of some Romanian classics such as Emilian Cristea, Ion-Ionescu Dunăreanu, Traian Naum and Nae Popescu. I was fascinated by their sketches drawn in the absence of any satellite imagery, GPS guidance or dedicated software. Most probably a few photographs would have assisted them back then in penning these „3D” maps correctly.

I am posting here an assignment I undertook to draw the southern foot of Costești-Deal (Hunedoara, Romania) in the Șureanu mountains.