Yongchon Utility Pole

 

Just another picture of a utility pole. A little better composed than usual. 

Bull Statue

 

A nearby plaque says this statue was put here because the bull is a symbol of Sokcho. Apparently, the city borders form the shape of a bull lying on its side. I had a look at an online map and maybe it looks like a bull if you squint really, really, hard. And then close your eyes and imagine it.

I found this composition after walking around the statue a bit and I made a test photo. Not bad. Then this woman walked past and the picture became very good instead of not bad. It was the difference between the photograph being forgotten on my hard drive and going into a portfolio folder.

The 'crack in the jade' is the bright sidewalk light on the right. I darkened it a bit in Lightroom but it's still too bright. I could crop, but then the woman's legs are too close to the edge of the frame. Tempting to use Object Removal in Lightroom but I wouldn't feel right about doing it. 

Gas Pipes

 

Down by the harbour until recently was a seafood restaurant. There were always racks of drying fish all along the street-facing wall. The racks are all gone now, revealing a gas meter and pipes on a plywood wall along with what looks to be a covered electrical outlet.

The owner of the restaurant was a very old lady, so I hope that she is retired and resting.  

Yongchon

Riding bicycle into the winter countryside seemed like a good way to complement my ragged feelings.

I didn't want to see people, especially after several walks through overcrowded downtown Sokcho during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

I liked seeing the signs of people without having to see anyone. It felt as though humanity had disappeared and peace returned.

The whole agricultural area was quiet. Even the cattle in their sheds were making no sounds.

Despite the cold, winter may be my favourite time to be out and about. Others are herding together in coffee shops and living rooms while I can enjoy isolation outside with no need to hide away in my room.

Daily Writing

My wife writes a post on her Korean blog daily. She's read advice from successful blog writers who say you should write something every day when you start out, even if the quality is not good. The posts get better and better through practice as time goes on and after a few years you are a successful blogger. 

Sounds great in theory, and maybe I should try that as well. But a couple of things make me wary of trying.

First, I don't really want to publish what I know to be bad writing. I'm the same with photography. I edit, edit, edit before selecting a few photos to share. I think the solution to that worry is to write a blog post every day and leave most of them in draft mode to be deleted later if necessary. Or just write in my journal and choose some good entries to share on the blog.

Secondly, I worry that I have nothing to say. I'm not profound. I'm not even that interesting. I worry sometimes that I'm just . . . blank.

If I want to be a writer, then I think I will have to make an effort to write often. Anything. And share perhaps a tenth of what I write. Well, we'll see. Or not.

Cold and Cameras

I met this fellow on my way home this morning. He didn't run away, probably because he lives with someone and meets lots of people along this street. I approached with my iPhone and, noticing that my shadow was in the frame, moved around until it looked like a shadow making a picture of a cat from a close distance. Well, that's what it looks like to me because I was there. I'm not sure it's obvious to someone seeing the picture for the first time with no explanation.

This photo looks pretty good on my iPhone screen and maybe it looks okay at the small size it's displayed on this blog. But at 100% the picture quality is pretty terrible. The cat is a grey and white mass of mush. Maybe it's human error.

I had another camera with me on my walk, a Minolta X-700. I made something of a resolution to use only digital cameras this year, but when I got up this morning I put a roll of Portra 160 in the Minolta and left the house. I wanted to use the Minolta simply for the pleasure I get out of handling a film camera, but also because the frame counter has stopped working and I wanted to see if the camera was broken or if it's just the counter. The film safe-load indicator was moving, so I guess the film was advancing.

Alas, the biggest problem with the camera this morning was the batteries being made unusable by the cold. The shutter worked, but the shutter speed indicator in the viewfinder dimmed out and disappeared so I don't know if the shutter was moving at the correct speed or just some random speed. I turned off the camera for a while and that restored enough power to get me to the end of the roll. Maybe it's the end of the roll. No frame counter . . . I'm going to send the film off next week and see what I get back.

I had thought about bringing that camera with me to Seoul later this month, but I won't be doing that now. It'll be colder in a few weeks and the camera doesn't work well in freezing temperatures. What to bring, what to bring . . . ?
 

End of 2025

 Other, better organised photographers have probably shared their Best of 2025 posts on their websites by now. All I could manage was to select a few of my least worst pictures from the last few weeks. I present them here to 'clear out the cupboard', as it were, before the start of 2026.

Vietnamese Mango Dessert Shop Sign, Downtown Sokcho

I initially liked this photo a lot. The orange-yellow colours of the sign stand out nicely from the grey wall, the angle and intensity of the light is good, and the horizontals and verticals are okay. Well done, me. But I realised later that the bottom section of the picture is too busy where the bicycle overlaps the the sign.  I wasn't going to include it in this post, but I thought it might be a good exercise in describing why the photo is a failure.

Bricks Block 482 Cafe, Sokcho

The 482 in the name comes from the building's location in the old address system. Downtown Sokcho has a number of harbourside structures that have been turned into coffee shops. What else? I once heard someone on the BBC say that England would eventually be a nation full of old people selling coffee to each other. Maybe that's happening everywhere.

Neighbour's Bicycle

My neighbour bought this bicycle last year but I'm not sure she's ever used it. Or perhaps she's just very good at parking it in the same place all the time.

Thatched Rooves, Wanggok Village

I probably should have focused closer to the foreground for a better depth of field. I'll get back there someday, I suppose.

View from southwestern shore of Cheongcho Lake, Sokcho.

Cheongcho Lake is more or an estuary or harbour than a lake. Maybe it was a proper lake and then harbour developers dug out a big entrance so large boats could get in.

Downtown Bus Stop, Sokcho

I think this young man was looking beyond me to see if another bus was coming. If I had turned the phone camera a fraction of a centimetre to the left, I could have gotten the whole reflection of the bus symbol into the frame. Damn. Also, the background is messy, but at least it's very bright and contrasts well with the bus' sideview mirror.

Some Alley, Somewhere in Sokcho

I want to go back to that spot (if I can find it again) and photograph this in black and white on a regular camera. Maybe colour will be good as well.

I spent most of 2025 bouncing between cameras and going to the same places over and over with no idea of what I wanted to photograph. Making a resolution is just inviting bad luck, but in 2026 I would like to stick to one camera and pursue a project that will provide me with focus and motivation. Best of luck to me and best of luck to you this coming new year.