This is the second post with Georgia in photos. If you haven’t checked the first post then you can find it here
As in the first post, I publish images taken by me and Jan Ivahnenko
Tsageri
We continued our action-packed adventurous trip through Georgia. After finishing out 3 days hike we went on to a little town called Tsageri where we wanted only two things: a shower and a comfortable place to sleep.
As everywhere in Georgia there were guesthouses with grapevines in the backyard as well as drying clothes and flowers. I like that they don’t have hotels in many towns and you can dive into the culture and atmosphere deeper. It’s a completely different experience when you can stay at someone’s place, rather than at a standard quality hotel.
For the shot above I deliberately put the drying clothes in the frame to cover some of the details in the frame and leave the focus on the stairs and the flowers. I often put something in the foreground to reduce the number of details and improve the photography composition
Way to Ushguli
The next day we woke up still tired and without having breakfast we went to find transport to our next destination. The buses, we’ve been told about before, weren’t running in the direction we needed. If you’re planning a trip to Georgia, take in mind that the public transport there is not the best. Sometimes there can be not a single bus stop and no info about it at all. So we decided to hitchhike for the 70km we had to pass.
Luckily it’s really easy to catch a car in Georgia. We did it in 5-15 min and the guys brought us about 60% of the way to Ushguli, where we headed.
By the way to save time and make the colours consistent on all of the photos of Georgia we made a preset in Lightroom and applied it to all the photos, of course changing some adjustments for every picture
After about 2.5h of walking a car chased us. So Georgian maintenance workers removed this tree quite fast. And some Swiss couple brought us to the Village. Otherwise, we would have to walk for another 2-3h.
Closer to the Village we had views like this. I deliberately darkened the front part of the image using the adjustments brush tool and brightened the background. This is also to shift the attention focus point to the main part of the image
Georgia in photos: Ushguli
Ushguli Village looked amazing. I wanted to see some authentic places in Georgia but often saw some bad modern architecture and ad banners. In Ushguli 90% of the houses looked very authentic and the place was almost like some decorations for a fantasy story. And people still live there in a quite authentic way. You can’t see something like that in the modernised rich part of Europe.
Shkhara Mountain and Surroundings
The shot above is quite simple but we both like it and I wanted to share it with you too. The field flowers on the front create some kind of cosiness.
This is the highest mountain in Georgia and is 5,193 m high.
The Village Itself
I especially love the composition of this photograph since the shadows and the wires add some dynamic lines. Although it’s still a static picture, of a cow on a street, with centred composition.
The village is also remarkable because people live there permanently even though the village is on 2,100 metres and this is one of the highest continuously inhabited settlements in europe.
In the Image above, you can see how well Ricoh GRIIIx can handle the shadows on a bright sunny day. The dynamic range is surprisingly good for an APS-C sensor.
It’s also a bit sad to see derelict houses in such a beautiful and scenic place like Ushguli.
Here Anna played with contour lighting and beautiful shapes of shadows. To be honest this is the second shot of this car. The first one she took in the middle of the day and the second during the golden hour when the shadows got longer. Sometimes the golden hour indeed plays a big role.
These towers worked as a fortification to protect the village from other folks during medieval times.
I like the photo editing Anna applied to this image. This way it looks more artistic and moody she pulled up the point of black on the curves and shifted the hues to greens. Usually editing like this creates a filmy look. Actually, the easiest way to make a digital photo look filmy is to make the shadow’s hue greener.
Photos of Georgia: The Way To Tbilisi
Editing these images I realised that really cold colours look better in the pictures taken on rainy days. Actually, it looks a lot better than normal white balance or warmer colours. Before that, I turned the images like that in B&W but here the colour expresses the mood better.
Lately (probably I do it too often) I pay a lot of attention to the light and if it appeals to me, I take pictures of it solely. But here hopefully I can show this atmosphere with the evening sun and the grapevines on a street.
Next and The last part of this post will be about Tbilisi! I’m going to have fewer pictures there but the most important ones.
If you liked this post, please leave some feedback, share it or respond to it. Since this is a new type of post for me, I would be really happy to know if people enjoy it!)
