Landscape photographer Gareth Goldthorpe shares his experience of photographing the Caucasus during a trip to Georgia, Asia.
Georgia – The Country Not The State
Georgia, in the South Caucasus, is a country of great diversity, the perfect place for a keen landscape photographer to hone his skills. Indeed, the hardest thing about putting together this piece was to find a way to represent Georgia pictorially with only eight images. At just under 70,000km2, it is a relatively small country but, within its borders, it offers a wide array of landscapes, wildlife and cultures. It is nestled between two impressive mountain ranges to the north and south (the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, respectively), the Black Sea to the west and, to the east, a large and secretive Central Asia.
Photographing the Caucasus Mountains
Being so small, Georgia is an easy country to get around (whilst public transport is pretty much restricted to inner-city settings, there is an excellent network of private minibus-taxis or marshrutkas) but, for complete access, spring/summer is definitely the best time to visit. Photographically speaking, the most challenging (and therefore rewarding) places are found along with the Great Caucasus mountain range. More experienced photographers would have a better idea of why this is but I suspect that it has something to do with the harsh quality of the light at these high altitudes, tending to make for very high-contrast images (as above) that can fail just as easily as not. Of course, good light can still be found in the mountains and, when storm clouds conspire to diffuse the otherwise concentrated sun, the resultant pools of light and shadow emphasise the highly textured rock faces and grass-covered slopes of the mountains.
The Misty Valleys of Georgia
At a slightly lower altitude in the mountains, the light is less harsh and more favourable to a subtler landscape. The softer and shallower valley walls that can be found around remote villages, such as Sno in the Greater Caucasus, are often shrouded in mist which further softens the landscape. In the image below, one of the centuries-old fortified towers, that the Caucasus are renowned for, is lost in the wide and green valley.
Similarly, the thick, low mists that often shroud the mountains of the Khevsureti region, east of Kazbegi and Sno and bordering with Chechnya, create incredibly mysterious, even sinister scenes that lend themselves well to black and white photography.
Photographing the Caucasus Open Vistas
In complete contrast to the high-altitude rocky slopes of the Greater Caucasus, the Vashlovani Protected Area, in the south-east of the country, is a semi-arid region typified by vast, open vistas and soft light. It is also a harsh environment, particularly in the summer when it is incredibly hot and water is scarce, but at the right time of year, this is an incredibly rewarding place to photograph. During the winter months, much of the savannah-type landscape is dry and monochrome but the clear skies and soft light provide epic landscapes that stretch for many kilometres.
Protected Areas in Georgia
In the spring, before the conditions get too dry and hot, the grasslands reignite with colour, contrasting spectacularly with the orange sandstone that gives the landscape its sculpted look. The sandstone is responsible for some interesting shapes and lines that make for compelling compositions and both this and the spring colours (here, mostly yellows and greens with splashes of purple) are illustrated below.
The main, or at least original reason that this area has been protected is because of the wild pistachio trees that abound there. They are relatively rare in the region and are an important source of food for wildlife such as bears and wild boar (though the nuts are far too bitter for human consumption). They grow far apart from each other and so make for very open woodlands that break the landscape in quite a poetic way. Their squat trunks and wide-spread branches also make for compelling photographic subjects, especially in the summer when their leaves and fruits are in full bloom.
Sunset Caucasus Photography
Being a semi-arid area, the air can become quite dusty, particularly when the cold winds from the mountains to the north whip up the bare ground in winter. Whilst this can be a problem for camera gear, it does also make for some spectacular sunsets where even a relatively cloud-free sky can be thrown into the most vivid hues of orange, red and yellow. When combined with the interesting forms made by the soft rock, overnight stays in the area are highly recommended.
Photographing the Caucasus – Final Thoughts
Georgia in particular, is an incredibly photogenic country whose many treasures are easily accessible to the adventurous photographer looking for the ideal location for photographing the Caucasus. Most importantly, there is only one thing that Georgians love as much as their country and that is to show it off to outsiders. With only around four million people living there, they have a lot of space to share and they are happy to do so; as long as you don’t stay too long, of course. It was my home for seven years and I will certainly be returning when I can.
Gareth Goldthorpe’s passion for photography stems from a love for the natural world and has shaped his professional life as a conservation biologist. His ultimate goal is to use photography for conservation, leveraging his images to showcase the beauty and influence of the natural world and its inhabitants.