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.

Break Time

 

Bus drivers often take five minute breaks at major bus stops like this one in the Sokcho Market. It's the end of the line and also the start of the line for circular route 55. The driver got out to have a chat with someone and then walk up and down the sidewalk with his electronic cigarette.

House and Cloud

 

Sangdomun Village, Sokcho

It took me quite a while to get some clouds that I liked. I started photographing the white house from about twenty or thirty metres to my left, but all the clouds would get halfway across the frame and disappear. Big or small, no cloud got more than halfway through the scene. So I walked down the road a little ways and was rewarded, after some waiting, with this nice length of cloud stretching across the sky.

Nikon D850, Nikkor 28mm 1.8G, Standard picture control. Grain effect added in Lightroom.

Mail Box and Flowers

 

Sangdomun Village, Sokcho.

I'm not good at getting up early to catch the dawn light, and even if I could get up at the Velvia hour, the buses here don't start running until seven o'clock or so, which means I can't get anywhere nice until about eight o'clock or later.
In summer at that hour, the sun is already washing out all colour and the will to live, but in late November when I made the above photo the light was still nice at nine-thirty. Which allowed me to get this pleasing picture of a post box and some hardy flowers.

Nikon D850, Nikkor 50mm 1.4G, and Standard picture control, for those of you are interested in those things.

Apartment Building and Traffic

 

As seen from a bus stop

Chesterton Hotel

 

Chestertons Hotel, Sokcho. Amongst all the brown and grey I like the little bit of purple between the buildings and the tiny bit of sky at the top.

Buddha Watching Over Child Monks

Out behind the main worship hall of Bo-gwang Temple are a few statuettes and figurines of Buddhas and monks. Was it an intentional decision by one of the temple monks to arrange some of the figures so it looks as though Buddha is watching over these child monks through the pine branches? Or is it my own interpretation? 
 

Unfinished Building

Unfinished Building, Sokcho.

 Two German-speakers passed me as I was photographing this building and crowded utility pole in the wasteland between Expo Park and the downtown hotels. I don't know what they were saying, but they kept looking up, perhaps trying to figure out what I found interesting.