as a photographer there's nothing worse than hearing the sound of a
thundershower the night before a photo shoot
that believed that you're gonna get
washed out the occasional wander to the window to watch the downpour and hope it
all stops before your photography journey begins and it's easy to just
turn off your alarm and sleep in; but is the mornings after a storm where the
light really has moon the atmosphere is dramatic there's just a perfect
character for your photography adventure
I Ushguli this morning and out of
nowhere last night just got hammered by thundershowers so neither Greg or I don't
think slept very much just cuz it was so so loud now hopefully we don't get
rained on right now because we're gonna go out and hopefully get some photos
early this morning a little bit of moody light
so I'm not sure if you can see me even though I put a little bit of cellphone
light on my face but we climbed it up to the top of here
because this morning I thought that there was gonna be like the best chance
for good light down this valley this way and then it's just totally totally
cloudy the good news is the clouds look like they're breaking a bit and the
clouds are really Moody even better news is from up at this vantage point and
shoot like six different directions where this old tower you've got the town
that we're staying in back that way and then if we come around the tower to this
side it's a really old town here and another one way down the valley so this
is perfect
let's talk about mood super-quick I think we all kind of get caught up in
this idea that we need to be shooting epic lights really beautiful sunrises
and sunsets all the time and that when it's overcast and cloudy like this it
doesn't work but I think the reality is you need to shoot the mood you need to
shoot how it feels and how it felt and last night was dramatic with all the
rain and it felt dramatic it felt Moody and waking up this morning in the dark
it felt dark if felt Moody and so I shot that shot
that's the image I shot this morning
now I'm moving on to shot number three and I kind of want to walk you through
the process because this image is going to be a really long exposure these
clouds up here don't look like they're moving but they are absolutely chucking
and I want to capture that I want to make like striations in the sky and so
right now the camera shooting a 30-second long exposure at ISO 800 because
that's what the meter told me was correct and it looks a little bit on the
bright side but it does look correct so I'm gonna guess that at f11 will do
the trick ISO 800 in fact it's getting brighter so
I'm gonna guess let's drop the ISO down and stop - ISO 400 and I'm actually
gonna test shot this just in case but then essentially from ISO 400 30 seconds
I can split the ISO while doubling the shutter to get my desired shutter speed
so I go to ISO 400 to 200 that's one minute from ISO 200 to 100 and that's
two minutes so my long exposure should be two minutes
if this looks like it is the proper exposure and it's on the dark side so
I'm gonna switch over to bulb mode and I'm going to go 3 minutes
to compensate for that extra half stop of light f11 iso 100 and now we wait
okay three minutes is up and it looks good it looks really really moody that's
the desired outcome I really wanted the clouds to have that movement showing
it's almost like a wave of blue in the sky I think it looks really really good
I do think that I want to try to maybe do a vertical frame of the exact same
thing but really happy with how this is coming out
that was an awesome morning that was really really nice and actually the
skies are kind of cleared up and it looks like it's gonna be a really nice
day today was a classic example of why you get out and shoot every day Greg
sent me a message at 4:52 this morning saying are you seeing this weather
are we still shooting sunrise my response was are you an idiot Greg of
course we're shooting sunrise this is what we do you don't drive all the way
into the middle of this facing death-defying roads and not shoot
sunrise even if there's thundershowers you get out you shoot even if it looks
bleak you get out and shoot just get out and shoot and in my experience only on
the rarest occasions do you get out and shoot and regret it in fact I'd say one
out of a thousand shoots have I ever regretted getting out of bed so get out
and shoot and we're gonna get out of Ushguli. this was an awesome awesome place
this place is incredible I haven't fully decided that I will be running an
adventure trip here in Georgia for camping hiking and photography in 2020
yeah we've turned this into a location scouting trip and it's been unreal so
we'll be back here probably in two years hopefully with some of you guys and for
now get some breakfast get the girls and get back on that scary road
I mentioned the dogs in Georgia look at this guy look at this guy
these caucus dogs they're like a special breed I'm actually not sure this is one
of them but they're just gorgeous they're so friendly and cuddly and soft
oh I want to take one home you're the best bear dog
we made it back to mestia we survived the road again to be honest I think the
road was less dangerous feeling today it also helped that there wasn't a lot of
traffic on it and the drive was actually nice really beautiful we're gonna stop
here and grab some coffee relax chill out a bit maybe get some lunch and then
push on to wherever we end up sleeping tonight
refueled now and we're on our way the next bit of roads beautiful but it's not
death-defying so we should be there in a couple hours I actually think that we're
heading to called Poti today which is the Black Sea I see I've never seen
before so even though Poti is like a port town we're going to some
little beach in here it even though it's not supposed to be like brilliant or
incredible or famous or anything like that I'm looking forward to it a new sea
today for our drive to get there
so we spotted this place on the drive into mestia yesterday and we had to stop
here cafe bar but the best part is the view here looks crazy
if you're into contrasts do what we just did we were at about 2,100 meters with
20 degrees Celsius one of the most remote settlements in all of Europe and
then we came here to the coast I don't know where we are we're south of Poti
and it's hot 33 degrees and the coolest part is we're in this big suite with a
massive balcony like a massive massive balcony and it is party time on the
beach at sunset music people out it's busy this is such a such a contrast and
I kind of love it
the winds that have kind of picked up but it's just been really nice to just
hang out here with the crew drink some of this Georgian drink that we picked up
at the grocery store for a dollar just to test and to be honest
it definitely doesn't know it goes down smooth it's actually really really good
and we've just been hanging out here having a drink shooting some time-lapse
people watching at the beach and it's been the perfect way to end this like
road trip we didn't plan on coming to the beach and this kind of just almost
like closed the circuit for us Georgia gave us like a little bit of
everything we got the city life we got the mountains we got the really
rural areas and then we ended at the beach and yeah cool way to visit the
Black Sea for my first ever time and yet somes just dipping down behind the
horizon and amazing just a phenomenal day a phenomenal trip and I'll see you
guys tomorrow as we head back to Tbilisi