My wife and I recently returned from Svaneti to Tbilisi for the winter, the third time we’ve done this, to get a break from difficult electrical and hydrological conditions and to see everyone we’ve been missing in this end of the country. I’ll always miss Svaneti’s beauty, no less in winter, which is now in full swing there, but here we are.
We’re in a new apartment to boot, which gives me the opportunity to notice what is different here from the last place we lived in. Here, we are on the 8th floor instead of the 2nd, and there’s a much larger landscape in view right from the windows. I have challenged myself to find new things to photograph here too, inside and outside both. But this has been playfully automatic, not some rigid homework assignment I agree to.
A nice mix of city and nature presents itself. We’re not far from the Mtkvari River, with trees still flaunting autumn colors everywhere, as well as high-rises poking through and new ones being built. Sunrise does light up several of these with its glow; and the progress of the sun in its winter-low path also changes photographic conditions hour by hour. Fog never hurts, adding mystery when it appears. Magpies are the only birds I’ve tried to photograph here, with a long lens, but others might appear too.
So, yes, there’s plenty of beauty and contrast to notice in this big city. Pick a random location; even start right where you live, as I do. Changes of weather and season will give you new things to discover each day, and maybe more frequently than that.
Don’t have time for such frivolities? Ah, I mourn for your busyness. This is part of recharging our batteries, slowing down and making new discoveries.
I also look occasionally for images in my coffee grounds, either in the bottom of my mug or (when I’ve made and transferred a few days’ worth of cold brew) in the enamel teapot. Now, I’m not scrying for a fortune to tell itself; just scouting for exotica, things looking like other things. Which frequently turn up. Sometimes they scare me. That’s OK.
There are countless experiments to try, breaking the rules, using a phone camera instead of the big digital one, playing with all the settings of focus and exposure and shutter speed and aperture. And, set free from the “tyranny” of up to only 38 frames on a roll of 35mm film (remember that? I surely do, from 1978 up until mid-2008), bounded only by the storage space on one’s memory card, who cares if it takes dozens of tries to get something right?
Discard the failures, learn, count your blessings in the successes. Play, and enjoy. Photograph your family members. Turn color into black and white. Shoot at night, or in rain or snowfall. Let something be out of focus, or try to get motion blur. Under- or overexpose. Notice light reflecting off glass or plastic; shoot through a drinking glass or in a mirror. Shoot something upside down. See how many possibilities there are? Aside from the boring and narcissistic mirror selfie?
Why bother? Again, to slow down as a benefit in itself. To get your focus away from that problem you can’t solve by thinking directly about it. Maybe the answer will come while you’re playing instead of working too single-mindedly. History is littered with examples of such solutions coming only when unasked for.
And… just to have fun, when mostly what the world right now seems to be offering is existential stress on many scales. Thumb your nose at it: not to deny its existence, but not to let it bring you down and win.
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
