Yesterday was my 29th birthday. I don't feel remotely close to 30, though sometimes I do feel a slight maturity and increase in empathy with each year that passes. Truth be told, I'm not a particularly serious or mature person in general. One thing I am, is highly observational. I think running around with cameras is what I was made for. I never really considered the possibility that there might be some sort of purpose for me out there in the world until recently. Where most people somewhat know what they want to do from a young age: painting, playing instruments, sciences that lead to a career as a doctor. I just never truly knew what I wanted to do, and even now, sometimes I still question just what I am doing and where I am going. But I sit back, I take a look from afar and consider what I believe really matters: the present. That constant motion from one place to another. The endless thirst for all things new. Birthdays have never really been something I have given much thought to. This is the first birthday I have ever had in which I truly felt content. The realisation that I was actually doing what I wanted.
These past six months of travelling were meant to be a simple two weeks in Turkey. I'm now in my third country, Georgia. I look back and think of what may have happened had I boarded that return flight back to England, and it genuinely horrifies me that I would've missed out on all these life experiences. I was always an introvert, afraid of social interaction and often spending stupid amounts of time just doing nothing on my own inside, letting the time pass. They say travel broadens the might, but I think my mind was already shaped for this. All anxiety I previously had is gone. I have no assumption of what was once depression. I now yearn for a camera in my grasp, a new place within my view. One step in front of the other, seeking out new interactions with people, and witnessing the true beauty of the world. Weirdly, I feel I adapt to these changes within an instant. I don't miss the 'first world' lifestyle. I don't miss the perfectly paved roads or the modernist housing developments that coated the landscape. Not once have I missed the lifestyle I had back in my bedroom.
As I type this, I sit in a living room on a farm in Akhalkalaki, Georgia. Snow is all around, but the intense heat punches into the Earth and bounces back up. It's warm, yet apparently it is 1°C. It's quiet here. I sometimes hear the sounds of cows, and that's it. A softened light enters the room through a mixture of Armenian and Georgian influenced drapes. All I have with me is a few items of clothing, two cameras, a camera gimbal, and my laptop (as well as the collection of cables and batteries they all rely on). All of which fit into one backpack. I don't own a lot of things, but again, I feel I was born for this more simplistic lifestyle. I don't need a lot to be happy, it seems. And I felt this more than ever yesterday, the feeling of turning 29 not bothering me at all. Instead, I chose to walk up the mountain behind the village, do some photography, and then sit on a rock that overlooked the village and nearby mountains. This village is split into two areas, for the most part. Which holds a huge flat area of farmland in the middle. Homes are a mixture of traditionally old village homes, and some slightly modernised (more so expanded upon) homes from the Soviet era.
Up on the mountain is a stream in which the locals rely on for water. It's drinkable, and surprisingly good. A collection of rocks took the water in different directions to slow it down towards the village, little pools and turns here and there that had frozen over or remained in motion. You could see the pockets of air beneath the ice as water would run beneath it. I found myself sticking to this stream for the most part, looking around for photography subjects with the forest on one side, and the village at the bottom of the mountain on the other. This rocky landscape was home to a lot of spiders, little things that would scatter around with the movements of rocks as I would place my footing. I'm not too bothered about spiders, I was more concerned of the possibility of snakes that could be lurking in the crevices of the rocks. Nature here in this time of year seems to be mostly birds, four-legged friends in the form of deer and wolves. I was on my own up this trip on the mountain, but the excitement of really doing something kept pressing me upward.
The rocks in this area have an interesting set of colour to them. It's as if on one side they're swallowed up by the growth of moss where the snow perhaps doesn't reach and last with the sunlight, and another side where the rocks held a strong mixture of brown and orange, as if to give the appearance of having been scorched by the sunlight over decades of seasons. It was a really beautiful environment that seemed truly natural, with little influence by mankind. I'm really not used to such environments, where back home in England development is rampant even in the villages, where the landscape is mostly flat. I would kneel down and notice the smaller aspects of life here. The growths of plants popping up out of the snow, the formations of ice by the stream of water, the blends of colours that were contained within such a small space. I was using a Sony A6000 with a 35mm F1.8 lens, I could barely see the screen with how bright the sunlight was. At times I felt a little limited by what I wanted to capture with this focal length, where the contrast in views within a tight space was something I wanted to capture fully. The trees in the background, the rocks in the foreground, and the stream that ran through.
Here in this area of Georgia, it was once Armenia. The people that live here consider themselves Armenian. They're very much Christian, very much devoted to the Armenian lifestyle still despite the Georgian influence in recent years. In a way, it is like I never left Armenia. I hear Armenian, and not a single word of Georgian. Homes are still decorated in a mixture of Armenian and Georgian influence, though reminders of their backgrounds are still present. To look down at the village from the mountain was an interesting feeling. Sitting on that rock, I thought of whether the people here felt a change in their lives with the way things are heading. In some aspects, it's like there is nothing else happening outside of this space. That this is their entire world. I have some admiration for this mentality. To close off and focus on those who are around you, reliant on your farmland's production. The elements of community that are otherwise lost elsewhere.
Perhaps this was in the back of my mind all along, and what encouraged me to look down at my feet during this little hike. To focus on the small details and little worlds that were right there to be captured. Huge structures of ice in pools of water, rocks that swallowed up the Earth beneath and seemingly never ended. The craters in the snow that surrounded the stream that were impacts from larger animals that had made their way over to drink from the water. Turning 29, it's more a reminder that I'm just another piece of it all. Time passes, the water runs down from the mountain to the village. But that's fine.