Photographer #2: GIORGI KHARITONASVILI
GIORGI KHARITONASVILI
TBILISI, GEORGIA
41.7151° N, 44.8271° E
@giorgi_kharitonashvili
1. Please give us a quick introduction to yourself.
I’m Giorgi Kharitonashvili, as you already can hear out from my super long and complicated surname, I’m from Georgia – born and raised in Tbilisi. Currently – living, working, and studying as an architect in Vienna. Vienna was love at first sight which lasts almost 10 years now.
2. Were you visiting the place/country or do you live there?
I guess nowadays we all are living in a totally weird world, in the middle of the global pandemic. I feel like I’m living in a matchbox since march 2020. I had to stay all the time in my tiny apartment in Vienna without being able to go home to Tbilisi to visit my family and friends. But somehow I managed to spend some time at least on Christmas with my family, so there are some pictures which I shot during my time in Georgia.
3. What can you tell us about the people in the shoot?
I guess the people which you will find in the pictures, they’ve been surrounding me most of the time since pandemic, these are – Niko (the greek guy with the glasses) he’s my flatmate and the most untalented model on this planet (but he’s really good architecture photographer) then there’s Malea (Curley redhead) she’s my girlfriend. I shot my small brother Luka as I was in Tbilisi with his dog and there are some other friends too, who I was able to see from time to time.
4. Where did you do the shooting? Why did you choose this area?
Mainly pictures were made at home or during some walks in the park or just on the street. Usually, I try to catch some moments from everyday life on the film which I think are somehow very usual but unique, just as they are, without trying to make it look better or arrange some compositions, some times I do that too, but in these cases, I already have found the object as it was and maybe I’m correcting it just a little bit.
5. What are your favourite spots in this location?
A very special place for me is definitely in Georgia, at the country house, I made a couple of pictures there, for example, the blue pool or the balcony with the view of the Caucasus mountains. There is a funny story about this blue pool – as a kid, I used to fell almost once in a year in that very pool while I was running around it to pick up some figs from the tree, and every time I felt in, the pool was empty. still survived and never got hurt.
6. What photographer/artist influences your photography?
I guess my all-time favorite magazine is “Appartamento”, I just love to see how people live and pictures of their homes/ apartments – some of them perfectly arranged and some completely messed up – total chaos. But in every one of them, there is a beauty in its own way. I admire a lot of photographers like Sebastiano Salgado or Rene Burri, but there are some motion pictures too that I like very much, like Tarkovsky’s movies or Hitchcock. They are all very different and I really could not name you only one or two. It’s like books, I couldn’t tell you there is one author who I admire overall.
7. Famous last words – what would you like to share?
Famous words which I’m trying to keep in my head while I’m holding a camera in my hands: It’s better to apologize than to ask for permission, by that time the moment will be already gone.
