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R U S T

Jackie Dunton Paintings, Dorset, 2010

The top one's a composite from 2 photos of Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, England's most famous view. Acrylic on Canvas. The bottom is Jackie's version of a photo of mine of upper Ushguli, Svaneti. Acrylic on masonite. Both of these are her gifts for our house in Svaneti, yet to be bought but we're hoping. Thank you so much Jackie!

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Well, Nodar's aunt didn't win the Best Portrait category, but at least she was nominated for it.  See all entries for Kolga 2009 at www.kolga.ge by going to 2008-9 pages

Squeezed out a final 3 images from Ushguli.

Top:  2 local guys roasting teenage pigs in a clay oven for a 40-day after-death memorial feast

Middle:  a frog which obviously survived the cold winter in a warm place underground or somewhere, emerging on the last day of April

Jgurag (St George's) Church facade, nice & "primitive"

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

One more for the road... I left Ushguli for big, noisy, warm, chaotic Tbilisi a week ago, so I suppose I should stop posting photos from that wintry mountainous location.  Soon as I run out of good ones, I will move on.

Ratianis' Day feast at Jgurag (St George's) Church

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

At the risk of seeming repetitive, here are 3 more alternate images from the door of Jgurag (St George's) Church in Ushguli, same theme, different versions, just to show you what I was playing with at the time

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

The open door of Jgurag (St George's) Church, candles on the outside wall and a pan of smoking coals in the doorway, along with cash offerings - nice mix of pagan and Orthodox

Rooster and barn

Strange set of reflections including, lower, Lamaria Church and tower

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

More from the day for the Ratianis and another local family. Here are 3 representatives of those 2 failies (top) with Jgurag (St George's) Church through the window at right

The Church, top middle, and Ushguli's highest of its 7 churches, Lamaria (St Mary's) Church at right

A wonderfully local door to a barn - good folk art

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

(Why do my recent posts from south of Ushguli have labels of "spring", while those later ones from Ushguli, like today, still have"winter" labels?!  Well, because it IS still winter in Usguli.)

The first foreign guest to Ushguli, a week or so ago, a Canadian.  He had walked from Mestia to Ipari and spent the night there with friends of mine, who put him in touch with me and sent him on.  He was ready to camp and feed himself, as he usually does, but my host family took him in in pity.  The 2nd photo is of him backfipping rather irreverently from a location which I'll not name, onto snow - good fun!

Bottom 2 - prayer day for 2 local familes at Jgurag (St George's) Church, including that of my hosts, the Ratianis.  Calf sacrifice, stew in the cauldron, lots of moonshine toasts to various family members

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Mt Shkhara from Lamaria Church

Ice on the Enguri river

Window onto Chazhashi hamlet and Tamar's Winter Tower

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Ice up close, never-ending source of wonder for me, all too easily missed if you're not looking for it

The village (practically all of it)  from its top church, Lamaria

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three views of parts of the village from various places.  It's not that common to find points on the ground from which the whole thing is visible, as it consists of 4 or 5 hamlets spread out some distance from each other; indeed, in none of these shots is the whole thing in view

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Ice, just ice

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

More water-ice interactions making beauty

I knew that the electricity guys'd be working on our transformer - that was why we had no electricity in the upper 3/4 of the village for a few days.  I leisurely took a few shots of them digging up the old one in preparation to receive the new one - and then the latter was installed very fast while I was at home, and I missed the great event.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some

This is the effect of flowing water on the snow above it:  splashing up, melting it, refreezing it into ice, which hangs down but instead of tapering it widens, making these fantastic penduli (pendulums?)

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three views from the place which was my destination when I was interrupted briefly, resulting in the photos which I posted yesterday.  (That area of fascinating patterns was short-lived, melting into plain brown liquid long before I returned from the trek which produced today's photos.)

Here is Queen Tamar's Summer Tower, high above Ushguli (most of the village can be seen in the top photo).  I found the going to it pleasantly easy, considering that I was walking on up to 1.5m of snow.  But the snow was wonderfully hardened from much repeated thawing and refreezing, so I didn't sink into it more than 4 or 5 cm, which was wonderful.  The earlier in the day one makes such trips, the harder is the snow, so morning is better than afternoon.

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three images from a small patch of ground today.  I discovered it on the way to a more obviously interesting part of the village, somewhere with big landscapes - Tamar's Summer Tower, if I remember.  But I'm usually on the lookout for details in nature as well, so this intriguing little unfolding drama presented itself to me.

What is it, you might ask?  The answer might change your opinion of whether the photos are beautiful or not.  They are formed from interactions between solids and liquids at temperatures just above 0 degrees C... in a place frequented by the village's farm animals; in other words, from their manure and urine freezing and thawing on the ground.  Hey, I walk through this stuff every day from anywhere to anywhere else, in my rubber boots, no longer noticing the look, the feel or the smell.

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Happy

Birthday

Dad.

Happy

Easter

(Orthodox)

World.

Watchtower in window

View of my village

Ice microcosms

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Lamaria Church and a couple of memorial photos of the father of my host in the village, who died before I first visited Georgia

A much older headstone, vaguely cruciform - as "primitive" as they come

Ice doing its thing on a small stream

Self-portrait reflected in a young woman's frosted mausoleum window, Lamaria Church again