Parking

 

Eastern Paid Parking Lot

An attempt to make the ugliness and chaos of the city somewhat presentable.

A Few From Seoul

It was too hot to do much proper photography while I was in Seoul last week. I mostly took snapshots to share with friends, but a few, I think, are worth sharing on the blog.

 

The bus to Seoul stopped at a service area for ten minutes. Enough time to use the toilet or get something at the convenience store, but not both. I chose to get something to drink and on the way back to the bus I noticed a couple of transport trucks hauling cars for movie sets. In addition to a Ford Granada V6 was this Opel Rekord 1900.

The neighbourhood of Itaewon is full of steep hills. It was too hot to go up and down them, so I took photographs from the tops of stairs. Itaewon is a foreign quarter and there are many international restaurants such as the Russian one advertised by the sign in the top left.

Riding the subway on my way to see a Martin Parr exhibition at the Seoul Photography Museum.

My hotel was in a neighbourhood full of construction and small industrial shops so the view wasn't very good during the day. But at night I discovered an interesting photo opportunity from my window. This picture was made handheld through glass, so maybe don't look too closely . . .

The Good Old Days (Both Directions)

When I watch films set in the pre-electronic past, I envy the absence of computers and phones on desks. How good it would be to not have constant distractions and temptations and to perhaps think clearly with pen and paper.

Of course, if the people of that era knew about word-processing and spreadsheets, no doubt they would want to ditch their bottles of ink and get a machine that saves them time and effort.

Bird Perches and Lake

 

Yeongnang Lake, Sokcho.

I am pleased with this composition but it is something of a practice picture. I would like to come by one morning and find loons drying their wings on the perches.

Writing Skills

My writing skills are atrocious. I can manage a few decent sentences and sometimes a paragraph, but I can't organise my thoughts well enough to complete a short story or a simple essay. I was never a good writer, but years of living in a non-English foreign country and almost as many years having my brain rotted by computers and the Internet have led to a serious deterioration of my ability to think and communicate clearly. I need to rehabilitate myself by regularly writing good sentences, then good paragraphs, and then moving up to essays and stories. This blog entry could be a start.

Tractor in Yongchon Village

 

Tractor, Yongchon Village. 

I had to return to this scene many times to get a composition and light that I was happy with.

Jangsa Harbour

On a misty summer morning, I walked to Jangsa Harbour in Sokcho with my Nikon Z50II and kit lens. I went there before seven in the morning to avoid the heat. 

I've photographed the boat trailers and the marina before, but couldn't get any good result. I'm happy with this picture, maybe because I simplified the scene by shooting vertically and having just one trailer in the foreground.

A boat for fishing tours. Looking at this picture now, I wonder if I shouldn't crop the bottom of the frame to cut out that bit of distracting rope. Something to consider.

I've photographed these boats tied up together before, but on this morning there were some great clouds and fog in the far background.

The harbour is formed by a couple of breakwaters and this is the view looking out to sea from the north breakwater. If you sailed in a straight line from here you would end up somewhere in northern Japan.

The more I use the Z50II, the more I like it. The size is great for walking about, the tiny 24-75mm equivalent kits lens is all I need, and I'm satisfied with how the pictures look. I've recently cancelled my Adobe Lightroom subscription and I'm using Nikon's free NX Studio software. It's a little clunky and slow, but the results are what you would get from the camera. A new addition to the software is a film grain simulation, which removes the too clean look of digital photographs.

Post script:

Cropped version. I like the removal of the distracting rope, but now the boat is in a less interesting position. What do you think?