Idiosyncrasies of the Peculiar Mind

I've been on this weird funk lately, and I'm not sure what the cause of it was. Call it a "photographer's block," whatever it was I felt it pass this past weekend. This roll was taken a few weeks ago, but I simply haven't had the time to drop it off at Chungmuro, so I just held onto it until I went this past weekend with Jungle and Kelly. The weather was superbly compliant, and provided enough warmth to have half the city crawling back out from their winter slumber. Hopefully I can get Saturday's roll developed sometime this week.

Suffice it to say, it was rather fun to be out again shooting under non-cloudy skies,
though I hope for the spring to arrive sooner than later.

I've found that when I'm shooting by myself I go about things in a flurry, firing away without really hesitating, unrestrained and free to roam as I please. Though it is (currently) impossible to look through each other's viewfinders in realtime to see precisely, at the moment, what we are each seeing, shooting with Jungle and Kelly allowed me to take a step back and observe their own unique perspectives. By watching these two get immersed in their own peculiar ways, I was provided with another breathe of photographic life.

Our subconscious notices everything, all the while the conscious disregards everything, as we thread from one area to another. I kept asking myself: "What am I taking a picture of? What is my mission for the day? What hasn't someone else taken a picture of?" On certain occasions having a mission certainly makes the game more fun. Other times, it's best to let go of any "conscious thought" and just go with what your unconscious is telling you. With a blur of images and people constantly in motion, I was able to pick out certain stationary images in their serenity. Perhaps, I find the sublime more intriguing than the obvious, though I consider myself painfully over-analytical at times.

Anyways, this roll was from a few weeks ago, and it took me over a week and a half to get through, and another week and a half to actually get it developed, but I'm really happy with the way the photos came out.

So that's another 3 rolls for this month. So far, so good.

Roll:
(1) Kodak Tmax 400 (10/36)


         yes, those are wings.



pax

How to Win the Girl

Step #28
Know how to tie her laces.





pax

LNY - YOTR Ed.

Happy Lunar New Years everyone (& for all the rabbits out there), & with that happy new layout!!!! Kinda. We'll to be honest, my buddy Ken and I were browsing through a random photographer's website/blog and we figured that having wider pictures would be beneficial to the viewers. Also, without all that blogger gibberish on the side, I'm liking the minimalist feel to it. I still have to tweak the html some more, but I'll get to that later.

After a much needed holiday break, I am feeling rejuvenated, yet not really ready to go back to the routine, yet productive life that has been a part of me for the past year and three months. These holidays don't come easy in Seoul. After spending some time with the familia out in Ilsan for a few days, I went on a photographing binge-mission-spree-whatever-you-wanna-call-it over the course of two days with Kelly (on Sat.) and Jungle (on Sun.). On Saturday, the sun was out so there were a lot of people roaming around Myeongdong, Insadong, and Samcheongdong aimlessly window-shopping, and it was really fun to see the more fashionable side of Seoul. Everyone arrives fashionably late decked out from head to toe, and I suppose it's part of living in a big city (Or, the inevitable & unquenchable thirst for material possessions in a soaring economy).

Also, I'm beginning to enjoy street photography more, which involves a human element at the very least. I find myself constantly 'framing' pictures in my head as I am observing the fleeting crowd. There's just some moment that's bound to happen. As Cartier-Bresson put it, the "decisive moment." One of these moments occurred at a coffee shop in Insadong, where Kelly and I met a photographer that had not only one Leica (M6), but two others (M3 & M5 = a whopping grand total of 13,000USD)!!! Holding one up and peering through the viewfinder was all I needed to convince myself to get one someday! On Sunday, I met up with Jungle, and retraced all the steps from Saturday: Myeondong, Chungmuro, Insadong, and Samcheongdong. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as compliant as yesterday, but I had a great time shooting with Jungle, and I think she's itching for a nikon slr (we'll keep it a secret for now^^). All in all, I might have walked about 25km each day (well that might a slight exaggeration), but I just remember stomping all over Seoul with my 35mm in hand, and firing away without hesitation.

Roll(s):
(1) Fujifilm Superia x-tra 400 (5/36)
(2) Fujifilm Superia x-tra 400 (5/36)

enjoi















that look...



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