Adrian Scoffham 23/04/2024 Adrian Scoffham 23/04/2024

Street Photography - Station Square

The Heroes of Everyday was the way someone described this set of photos I shot at Station Square - my aim was to show the spirit and soul of the people who work tirelessly to keep the bazaar working day after day. Shot simply on the trusty Fuji XPRO 1 and Zeiss Touit 32mm F1.8 at 400 and 640 ISO to make sure I had enough shutter speed to grab the shots unnoticed. This series of markets is already much cleaned up compared with when I first came 10 years ago and is changing rapidly. For me it’s still a classic Asiatic experience and an absolute essential to get a real feel for life in Georgia because people from all over the country congregate here.

Adrian Scoffham 16/04/2024 Adrian Scoffham 16/04/2024

Spring Courtyards of Tbilisi

One could be excused for not discovering the magical semi public, semi private spaces that the courtyards of Tbilisi represent if no-one were to show you these; after all they are hidden from view and if you come from Europe or North America you’d perhaps be too polite as to push that mysterious door and start exploring a place that you weren’t sure you should really be. The thing about visiting Tbilisi is that the city challenges you to get out of your comfort-zone. What was considered the second-most bohemian city in Europe at the turn of the 20th century is arguably now the most - there’s a can-do spirit in the air gayly infecting all-comers whether that’s gastro-hounds, crypto-bros, bon-vivants, intrepid-travellers and all those just curious to take a look.

First-time visitors to Tbilisi often try to orientate themselves by comparing the city to other places they’ve visited, cross-referencing the visual clues in an attempt to understand the world into which they’ve been plunged. Thankfully after a few days most relent and freely admit that “Tbilisi is so Tbilisi” because the unique mix of Art Deco and Art Nouveau, Sovietica, Persian, Turkic, Russian and Modernism combine to make the place that is not only the Capital of Georgia but the Capital of the Caucasus feel at once homely and comforting yet somehow exotic and undiscovered.

Caught in a seemingly perpetual struggle between a controlling past in the Russian sphere-of-influence and a flourishing future as part of a wider-European future as the most Easterly member of the European Union we find Georgia thrust into the headlines each year as the government tries pushing unpopular reforms that echo laws enacted in Russia over a decade ago with the aim of stifling foreign influence Tbilisi feels like a cauldtron of emotions and competing interests. The courtyards of the Old Town show us the artistic attention to detail and plus-ça-change attitude of Tbilisilebi who’ve definitely seen this all before.

Spring often starts a little later in Tbilisi than in Central Europe but once the sun passes the Spring Equinox the mercury often rises rapidly after sometimes torrential April showers; those two elements combining to engulf buildings and courtyards in blossoms and bloom, late April into May is absolutely one of the highlight times to visit; you get pleasant daytime temperatures, a city that remembers much of life is lived outside and perfect conditions for exploring courtyards and making discoveries.

Modern cities often feel quite prescriptive and indeed, even here in Tbilisi the inexorable creep of AirBnB-ification and the homogenisation of exteriors and interiors to some beige-ennui of commercially-driven copy-paste continues unabated. The lockdowns and Ukraine War took some of the edge off of this development meaning there are still many places untouched by the prescriptive and unimaginative waves of gentrification - so if you haven’t yet beet to Tbilisi - there’s a great time to visit and that time is: right now.

Adrian Scoffham 30/11/2023 Adrian Scoffham 30/11/2023

23 in 2023 with an 11 year old Camera

I haven’t shot nearly as much as I would have liked this year, some years are like this and I don’t feel this diminishes my worth as a photographer - for me accepting the less creative times and treating them the same as the periods of great creation is pretty important. I’ve been working on lots of exciting things that aren’t photography related - which keeps me fresh and means that when I do make time to shoot more I’ll feel fresh and ready. All the same I did try and document some beautiful things I saw around Tbilisi when out and about and I find the results to be aesthetically pleasing.

Quiet photography is something I’ve been thinking about a lot this year, I recently discovered that this isn’t something I’ve thought of alone - clearly others have been thinking about and practicing this too, indeed I recently found a great article about this - all the same I have been very aware that this is what I’m into in this phase of my photography journey. The main idea is that the contemplative act of creation is relatively silent and that the art itself is strong enough to stand on its own without a whole load of noise being made. The output should have a quality of something that people want to keep coming back to again and again.

I’ve been pretty sad about the price rises of 35mm film (in particular) and also the discontinuation of my favourite film stock - Fuji Pro 400h. At the end of 2022 I sold off some 35mm cameras and also some digital to consolidate on a very pared-down daily carry that gives the look and feel of film - that combination is a mint condition Fuji XPRO 1 from 2012 along with a Carl Zeiss Touit 32mm F1.8 which is the equivalent of a 48mm in full frame. This setup clearly has a lot of limitations - firstly it’s not very fast at all, the lens isn’t that fast in terms of light transmission but also not shabby, the autofocus is limited and sometimes the exposure is frustrating… however what I hope you’ll see in the images I share here is the beautiful colour rendition, nice grain, good sharpness and lovely fall-off from in to out of focus areas. It’s a shame Zeiss don’t make more lenses for Fuji X mount but as it is they are expensive and the Fuji lenses are great - but they don’t have that Zeiss pop that I like so much. I should admit that there’s one image here taken on the Contax Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.8 and that’s the one above - what I find interesting is that the glass and coating has such a similar rendition

XPRO 1 with Zeiss Planar 1.8/32 and leather case - a classic and understated daily carry

I’ve chosen images from Tbilisi because that’s where I’ve spent the majority of 2023 - I am always amazed and how I still find beautiful details and scenes some 10 years after I moved here, this city truly is a photographic treasure.