Autumn has arrived here in Svaneti with a silent explosion of color. It firmly challenges my recent preference for black and white in landscape photography: there are just so many hues on display together!
The evergreen trees are staying that way, of course, quite dark. Their cousins, the deciduous (leafed) trees, are bursting into all shades of yellow, orange and red, mixed in with the conifers. Above all this in altitude, but mixing in with it, are (currently short-lived) sprinklings of snow white and the severe blacks and grays of the mountain rocks themselves.
Our relative low altitudes in Etseri (“only” about 1600m) are slower to change than the higher places in and above Ushguli, a village which has already had two snowfalls itself. The cold up there does bring on the season faster, sooner. I rediscovered this accompanying some Swiss friends for an overnight to Europe’s, Georgia’s and Svaneti’s highest village recently. They had asked me to be their guide, and covered all my expenses en route. Some from the party of six I have known for over a decade; others were new to me, but our friendship flourished for the next few days.
Staying in the guest house of my former Ushguli hosts, Dato and Nanuli Ratiani, we first took a brisk walk the steep front way up to Queen Tamar’s Summer Fortress, so named because its height above Ushguli renders it much less accessible in winter (not for me, though. Obsession won, nearly two decades ago, and I made the slog up in waist-deep snow). They were dazzled by the view of the village far below, presided over by Mt. Shkhara, Georgia’s highest mountain, whose glacier is also the headwaters of the Enguri. Weather, kindly having given us a beguiling half-look at Mt. Ushba the day before, now performed similar wonders with this imposing wall. These views are never guaranteed. A solid curtain of cloud is by no means rare; a cloudless blue sky not very interesting, though of course more revealing. We had the best, in between. Back down the longer, shallower back way and home for supper.
The next morning, after breakfast, we drove most of the way to the foot of Shkhara, then walked the remaining 2.5 km right to it and its glacier. Again, clouds moved around us, but left enough visible of the lifeless mountain peaks and the warm tones of the trees we hiked through, further along in their transition than Etseri’s lower forests, which will soon catch up. In my guide role, though, I found it a bit tough to give photography the sole attention it needs, and I don’t feel like I captured as much or as well as I would have had I been alone. But it was enough. I might go back soon, solo, to repeat the photographs attempt. No regrets, though. I was helping others fall in love with Georgia and Svaneti.
However… my best shot of autumn 2025 so far, which titles this article, is just a tight close-up of a red grape leaf in our own tiny Etseri vineyard, shot before my Swiss guests arrived. The wind was blowing it around a bit, but I tried to hold it steady with one hand while my 90mm macro lens got in close for every detail. Multiple frames later (possible because I’m shooting digital, not 36 frames of 35mm film per precious roll), I had something special, though I didn’t even recognize her until beginning to process the frames on my laptop. A lady’s gloved hand holding the skirt of her red dress as she twirls through the flamenco. This time, such a small scene captures autumn for me better than all the fall colors of large forest landscapes I have seen, so far. Intimate and miniature, but saying it all nonetheless.
Tomorrow, and the weeks ahead before all the leaves come down and snow turns everything to starkest whites on blacks, may give me the wide landscapes I have come to expect here. But until then, and alongside them anyway, will stand out my tiny flamenco dancer, made of a single sunlit leaf, mostly tantalizingly out of focus even.
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
