Ushguli, August 2007

The same as yesterday, only different.

Ushguli, August 2007

Bottom 2: in the absence of good weather, concentrate on the details - in this case, raindrops on rose leaves. Minimal focus (depth of field) to allow you to notice what I think is important.

Top: Lamaria Church and Mt Shkhara at the top of Ushguli again. Every day new weather and a new mood, different lighting making a unique scene.

Ushguli, August 2007

Bottom, a sow and her piglets, oblivious to the legendary scenery around them. I have stayed in both the house behind the red fence, left, and that behind the woodpile, right.

Top, the lower part of Ushguli from river level.

National Manuscript Centre, Tbilisi, September 2007

Top, part of an imperial Ottoman firman (I think that;s the right word), in Arabic.

Bottom, another from the Persian book.

This concludes my series on these beautiful ancient hand-written and -illustrated works of art in many different languages.

Ushguli, August 2007

(Today, the first time ever that the number of USA visitors to my blog surpasses that from Georgia, is also the day that the past week's large opposition demonstrations in front of the Georgian Parliament have been broken up with water cannon and tear gas. We teeter, totter...)

The lowest hamlet of the village again, in these two shots. Who needs to build Lord of the Rings sets, landscapes? Here they are. 8 days and I'll be there for the winter, far away from the chaos of Tbilisi.

National Manuscript Centre, Tbilisi, September 2007

Two from a marvellous Persian book with painted miniatures.

Ushguli, August 2007

Two views from (bottom) the Queen Tamar fortress above the village, showing the top three hamlets, and (top) part of the way down, showing the bottom one. I will be living in the top hamlet this winter - departure in 9 days!!!

National Manuscript Centre, Tbilisi, September 2007

I remember asking specifically for something either in Old Church Slavonic (the parent language of all the Slavic languages, still in use in the Russian Orthodox Church) or in Russian, to include in my photographs for the Centre. This, in the former language, was what they let me see. The set of parallel red bars in both frames is also writing.

the W()RD: One Great Slate

Announcing a bold, strange new experiment in blogging: the universal blog, accessible for editing by anyone.

Go to www.1gr8sl8.blogspot.com and you'll find not only the blog itself, introduced, but also the gmail address and password required to log in.

Where it goes next is not up to me, but up to you.

Ushguli, August 2007

Just back from there, as my last W()RD indicated. Video and photo footage to follow eventually.

Welcome to the first visitor from Latvia this week! 61st country!

And the 3 photos for today are: Lamaria Church again, and some slate and birch tree details on a walk up to Queen Tamar's fortress overlooking Ushguli.