Day Sixty-Two

On my way to Shinae this afternoon, the sun was setting so beautifully that I couldn't resist taking my camera out. Unfortunately, I was in a cab and by the time I got there, I was in a concrete jungle and couldn't manage to take a shot. Luckily, knowing that this would probably happen, I managed to snap this on the way. I quite like how it ended up with the background being a great deal more in focus than the foreground and the combination of colours.

Shutter speed: 1/40
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 100

Day Sixty-One

I have always been one of those people who love fluffy toys. I have a large collection of them in my room at home, and even when I moved to Grahamstown, I kept a few of my favourites on top of my computer in my residence and in a corner of my bookshelf in my digs. I am NOT one of those people who piles them on her bed and then takes them off every night - I am not nearly neat enough for that. I just like having them nearby. Looking at them makes me smile. I came to Korea with three of my favourites - Fudgie the dog was given to me as a ten-month (or so) anniversary gift, my Love teddy bear followed the next month for Valentines and my sister brought me my crab from one of her trips in America. While I have been here, my collection has grown to include some cats, a weird thing that I cannot possibly put a name or species to and a blue heart given to me by Patrick who is obsessed with the crane games. I had a photo shoot with them all yesterday, and the photo of the day is the best of the lot. Enjoy.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 125

Suggestions and Advise?

Day 65 of my pet project is looming ever closer, and I have been looking over my photos.

A couple of weeks ago, I was out to dinner with some friends when one of them commented that he really loved one of the photos that I hadn't selected as my photo of the day. It wasn't the first comment about that particular photo, and I was quite surprised about it, because I hadn't been too impressed with the way that it had come out. But he took this moment to assure me that my photography has slowly been progressing and he can see the difference. I really can't say the same.

I should probably note here that I am hardly ever the one to choose which photos I put up. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate making decisions - I will often sit down at a restaurant and ask the person I'm with what I want to eat. Every night I dump my photos on my computer, go through them on Picasa and select the best to put up on facebook. Usually there are 3-4 photographs, often there are more. This is the most choosing that I am prepared to do. I then go to Grant and get him to tell me which ones he likes. If you disagree with the photo that I have chosen, I apologise. Take it up with him! :P

I have taken to a little bit of editing with some of my photos - deepening shadows, playing with highlights and colour, nothing too serious but little touch ups here and there. I try to keep it minimal, but I definitely think that my playing around has improved compared to the beginning when all I was prepared to do was hit "Auto Contrast" and "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Picasa. I am feeling a little more confident now and I am having fun playing around with the photos, but I am not sure that the quality is quite as good as I would like.

I am looking for opinions here - what do you guys think about the photography itself? I am also looking for suggestions of things that people would like to see me photograph. I am always looking for something new, and since I tend to tread a very well-worn path, advise and suggestions are always welcome.

In addition there is one other thing that I would like opinions on. I have an idea for next year that I am interested in looking into. I do not know what I will be doing next year. My most likely prospect is a job at Grocott's Mail in Grahamstown as anything ranging from a sub-editor to a desk-job in sales. What I would like to do is take up a second job on the weekends as a photographer-to-hire. I would sell myself as an amateur photographer, at a cheaper price than most, and cover events such as parties, weddings, etc. letting clients know that my main aim is to gain experience in the field. Does anyone think this is feasible and does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Day Sixty

I totally intended to take photos on the move tonight and even remembered to bring my camera with me. Unfortunately, I forgot the battery which had to be charged and ended up not taking any until I arrived home after taekwondo. I was stumped for material and ran around my apartment just shooting random things like my shoes, my coathanger and inevitably my bookshelf. I quite like the way that this one came out - the mixture of blurriness, light, colour and clearness.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 400

Day Fifty-Nine

One of my friends from back home was complaining tonight. "Where are all of your fall photos," he asked, and it dawned on me that I haven't been taking complete advantage of the season. Part of the reason for this, of course, is the time that I tend to take my photos. However, I decided not to let that stop me, and tonight's photo, though far from perfect and a tad blurry because of the wind rather than camera shake I feel, is of the Autumn leaves in the park.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 3200

Day Fifty-Eight

Lately there has been a lot of construction work being done on my street, and yesterday as I walked down I noticed these silver construction cylinders. I remembered one of the assignments from earlier this year revolved around circles, and even though the assignment is over, it still made me want to take today's photo. I think that it might have been cooler if the surface had been more reflective. Either way, here it is.

Shutter Speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 3200

Day Fifty-Seven

On Saturday night, Amy and I arranged a scavenger hunt? Our excuse was my "birthday and a half" party, but it was just an excuse to have a scavenger hunt and we all had tons of fun. There was a list of photos that had to be taken, all of which had to include our teams mascot. Our mascot was the bright pink cat whom we name Ryan Stiles, and Saturday's photo is of Jess trying something on at one of the stores, which was one of the tasks that needed to be completed. I am a bit disappointed by how overexposed it is, but I like it regardless.

Shutter speed: 1/60
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 400

Day Fifty-Six

(Only 300 to go)

On the way back from school everyday I pass what I thought was a flower shop in my street. It turns out that it isn't a flower shop at all, but is rather a Korean restaurant. In any case, they have beautiful flowers of all sorts outside the shop and these two caught my eye, so I decided to test out my macro photo-taking skills and get this shot of them.

Shutter speed: 1/160
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 1250

Day Fifty-Five

Today was the second round of sports day, and I actually got involved this time around, participating in a race where groups of six people walk as fast as they can with a cup of water on their head to a person with a bucket on the other side, dump the water and then return to try again. Though I couldn't take photos of myself participating in the event, when I was finished, I managed to snap this shot of the bucket-bearer preparing herself while the girls on the other side wait for the whistle to blow and the race to begin.

Shutter speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 160

Day Fifty-Four

Today was the start of my school's three day festival, and it started off with a sports day. This meant that I got to bring my camera to school for the first time, and I took full advantage of that by walking around and taking photos of students. It was good practice in terms of getting used to taking photos of people. So, today's photo is of one of my students dressed in her class's outfit for the event and holding up a sign of support.

Shutter speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 160

Day Fifty-Three

Yesterday Jess and I decided to go out for some dinner. We weren't looking to have a big meal, just something small and filling. Unfortunately, we chose to go to a restaurant where the smallest meal was giant. We got some delicious lean pork, all different kinds of side dishes including kimchi, fish, tofu and, of course, doenjang jjigae, or "smelly foot soup" as I like to call it. It is a really healthy, really spicy, really smelly soup that usually tastes delicious. I didn't try any of it last night after Jess warned me that it was pretty spicy, but I did take this photo of it.

Shutter speed: 1/40
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 3200

Day Fifty-Two

I have been wanting to take this photo for awhile now and finally got around to doing it this evening. The idea came to me awhile ago when a competition arose for photographs involving reading. Unfortunately, the competition has long past, but I decided that I still liked the idea for one of my daily photos. So here it is.

Shutter speed: 1/5
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 100

Day Fifty-One

This weekend was the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Daejeon, and I made plans to meet a friend there. Unfortunately the friend didn't pitch and I ended up going to the festival on my own in rather a bad mood. The festival itself didn't end up being all that I had hoped, probably because of the mood that I was already in, but I did manage to take a few good photos, this being one of them.

Shutter speed: 1/500
Aperture: 14.0
ISO: 640

Day Fifty

I woke up yesterday feeling rather lonely, and so I arranged to meet up with a friend and we wandered around Shinae for awhile. It was a very busy day in Shinae, and there ended up being quite a lot to take photos of, even if the things were pretty random. Today's photos is of one of the stalls that was set up selling scarves and stuffed rabbits. I want one!

Shutter speed: 1/400
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 800

Day Forty-Nine

Tonight's pic was of me coming home from a night out and letting my hair down, quite literally. It is the first self-portrait that I am posting as part of this project. There are likely to be more to come.

Shutter speed: 1/40
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 1600

Day Forty Eight

Today I had a most awesome evening with my friend, Amy. She is sick at the moment and so instead of going out for dinner, we stayed in and ordered some junk food (cue gimbap and tteokpeokki) and watched Jack (cue Robin Williams and my favourite quote of the night: "Have you had a boner? A erecto? No I was hoping to get one for Christmas though!") She also showed me some of the trinkets that she had brought back from Japan, one of which was this adorable little frog.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 3200

Day Forty-Seven

Tonight I went for some Indian food at Hungry Eyes. From the outside, the restaurant doesn't look like anything special. In fact, if I hadn't known about it and been there before, I would have just walked past it. But walk up one flight of stairs and you are in a colourful haven of divine scents and Bollywood movies. This is where today's photo was taken - a candlabra in the windowsill.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 1600

Day Forty-Six

Last night was my yellow belt test, but tonight was when I found out the results. The master made us all sweat in anticipation as he came out with only three yellow belts. There were five of us doing the test. Then he made us do our stretches first, then went and checked on the soccer score and puttered about leaving us to worry about who had failed. Thankfully, it turned out that I wasn't one of the ones to fail, and though Adriana didn't pass, she also joined us two or three weeks after we started. So today's photo is of my uniform together with my new yellow belt and my old white one.

Shutter Speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 400

Day Forty-Five

Tonight on the way to Taekwondo I saw a surviving rose. I don't that it will be around for much longer, and I am already started to feel sad that the beautiful flowers that I have been photographing over the last 45 days are quickly fading away as winter approaches. Anyway, I thought that it was an apt photo. It isn't a perfect composition, but it was the best that I could do while hurrying off for my yellow belt test (which I find out the results of tomorrow).

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 3200

Day Forty-Four

Tonight was quiz night as per usual and we won! Which you wouldn't have believed from the looks on our faces. Our team was aptly named "Life is one big hangover" and we were all just too tired to care about winning really. I think that this picture perfectly captures the overall feeling of the team - it is of Patrick just about falling asleep on the table.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 3200

Day Forty-Three

Saturday night was the latest in a month of celebrations for Jessica's birthday and four of us (Jessica, Adriana, Ross and myself) went out for a nice dinner at VIPS to celebrate properly. While the other celebration dinners have revolved around Asian food, we decided that Western food was needed. And what goes better with Western food than Western wine? Picture number 43 is of the wine being poured.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 3200

Day Forty-Two

I am tempted to lie about this photo, but because this project is supposed to be about honesty, I am going to tell the truth. I completely forgot to take my camera with me when I went out with Jess and Angelina on Friday night and was kicking myself all night as photo opportunities kept cropping up. I got home after midnight and was so angry with myself for not having managed to take a photo on the Friday itself. However, since I hadn't gone to sleep yet, I did take a couple of pictures of the collection of scarves that were lying on my bed. Now that autumn has arrived and winter is around the corner, I have been finding myself donning scarves a lot more often, and having a collection to choose from is not something that I am really used to. So photo 42 is of my scarf collection. Thrilling subject, I know.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 1000

Day Forty-One

I am a fair ways behind with my photos and shall therefore catch them up one day at a time. On Thursday I met up with Shaina, Sean and Chanel in Shinae for some dinner and shopping. Walking along one of the main roads, we came across a brightly lit staircase leading up to one of the movie theaters. Photo number 41 is of that staircase.

Shutter speed: 1/100
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 2500

Day Forty

Every day this week, I have walked past a house on my street and noticed these bamboo sticks outside of it. I have been wondering what on earth they are for, but more than anything I have been wishing that I could have my camera on me. Tonight I managed to get a snap of them. The light wasn't perfect, and the picture is a tad noisy, but I like it regardless.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: 5.0
ISO: 3200

Day Thirty-Nine

Today before Taekwondo I decided that a quick shop in Shinae was well overdue, so I called up my friend Jodie and we headed there in our separate taxis, meeting for a quick catch-up, a brief shop and a stop in at Kraze Burger for some takeaway dinner. Kraze Burger makes the best burgers that I have tasted in Korea, and I haven't had one in months. Desperate to find something to photograph, I put some of the stuff on the table together and snapped this shot, which ended up being the best of the day despite my finding some other things to snap up a little later. This picture is of the Kraze Burger menu, my wallet and my bag from the Body Shop.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 250

Day Thirty-Eight

Today's photo is another one depicting the rapid descent of autumn/winter. At the beginning of last week, I noticed that this tree had one or two orange leaves. Now it is almost entirely orange and yellow. The weather is colder and I have already swapped my shorts for long pajama pants. Soon I am going to have to start up the underfloor heating once again. Anyhow, here are the details for the pics.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 3200

Days Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six and Thirty-Seven

I was without a computer for most of the weekend, and so wasn't able to keep up to date with the photos that I was taking. While that can be seen as a bad thing, I choose to see it as a good thing - it means that now I have a bundle of photos that run together to kind of tell the story of my weekend (kind of). While I have only been gone for three days, I have decided to post four photos mostly to show off my panoramic of which I am so proud. Now that I have learned how to do it, I have been playing around a lot, and while there are some better ones that I have taken, they haven't been put together yet (I arrived back late last night, okay?!)

So on Friday night I boarded a bus to Seoul, and the first photo was taken in this bus. The windows fogged up very quickly and the lights were reflecting through the fogged up window in a really beautiful, romantic way. I stared at it for a long time before deciding to just go ahead and draw a heart on the window so that I could take a pretty photo.

Shutter speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 640

On Saturday I headed with Adventure Korea to Tongyeong island in Gyeongsangnam-do. There we took a cable car up a mountain which had beautiful views, perfect for practicing my panoramic picture taking. This is the first one that I took.

Shutter speed: 1/320
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 100

Later on Saturday, we headed to a Science and Fisheries museum, and before getting there some people had to release a bit of their extra energy. This is where my second photo comes in. This was one of the girls jumping around and posing for photos. I do not know her name.

Shutter speed: 1/250
Aperture: f/7.1
ISO: 100

On Sunday we headed to another island which was a two hour ferry away, and we were supposed to go on a hike there. I was too tired though, and instead opted for some hot chocolate in the tearoom at the bottom of the hiking trail. There was a dog there that we fell in love with, so I felt that this day's photo should be of Rose, the highlight of my day.

Shutter speed: 1/80
Aperture: 4.0
ISO: 500

Update

So I have been at this for a little over a month now, and there have been ups and downs to my experience of taking daily photos. I have also learned so much, and I thought that I would share some of the things that I have learned and some of the difficulties that I have had.


Let's start with some of the difficulties.

• I finish work at 4:30pm.
  I choose not to bring my camera to school with me everyday because I am worried about the way that my students and colleagues will react to it. This means that after work, I head home and have to leave immediately to take my photos if I want to catch the last of the sunlight. Often I can't bring myself to do that, and end up taking night photography. While this has been an advantage in that I have been learning how to do night photography without a flash and have been forced to play with shutter speeds, apertures and ISOs, it is also a giant disadvantage in terms of the quality of the photos that I take. I do not have a tripod (something that I definitely need to invest in) and so I am forced to shoot with low shutter speeds, wide apertures and very high ISOs, which often presents problems in terms of noise.
  
• People.
  Most of my photos are of flowers, trees, food, things that I do not need permission from. I have not gained enough confidence at this point to walk up to people and ask if I can take their pictures. The few photographs of people that I have taken are either of my friends or else at other people's requests - the girl on the swing being the only exception. I do want to further my portrait photography and that means that confidence is definitely something that I need to work on.
  
• Monotony
  I have been feeling myself slipping into a pattern of taking pictures of the same things. As I said earlier, most of my photographs are taken at night, and most of them are taken along the same path. Everyday I walk to Taekwondo, and this is the most convenient time to take photographs, since I am walking around the city in any case. But what this means is that I keep taking pictures of the same scenes (or very similar ones) and I find myself getting bored with my photography. I need to reach inside myself and draw out some of my creativity. Trips are an easy way to do this, and I never seem to have trouble taking photographs on the weekend. It is the week that I am worried about and any suggestions as to how I can get past this would be appreciated.

So now I have explained a couple of my problems, let me tell you some of the things that I have learned over the last month.

• Aperture and shutter speed
  A friend sent me a message a couple of weeks ago and was talking about her photography course and how confusing she was finding it simply because she couldn't understand how aperture and shutter speed related to each other. This was something that I learned very quickly in my photography. Because I was taking photos at night, I needed to find the best way to lighten my photos without a flash. This meant a lot of fiddling with the aperture and shutter speed, and I quickly learned what I would need to capture a scene the way that I wanted it to be captured.
  
• ISO
  Early on in my project, someone commented on my butterfly photo, saying that "an ISO of 3200 is too high for outdoor photography in daylight". While I will admit that the ISO was a bit high for my liking, I was still learning at the time, and if it came to taking the photograph again with just a month's experience under my belt, it might have come out better. On the other hand, considering the shade, the clouds and the situation of having a butterfly about to fly away, I might have done exactly the same thing. I have learned a lot about ISO, especially having to do night photography, and little ways of keeping it lower and still having the photo come out as bright as I want it, or lowering the ISO for bolder shadows. I still have a lot to learn, but I am making strides and experimenting with ISO as much as I can.
  
• Camera shake
  This was a major problem for me early on, and a number of opportunities were ruined by it. This problem comes from using low shutter speeds without a tripod, and I particularly struggled with it in the beginning. Now, I try to make use of anything I can find to hold the camera still when shooting at low shutter speeds and it has been a long time since I missed taking a good photograph because I was shaking too much. It still happens occasionally, and always will until I invest in a tripod, but I have learned to deal with and correct it, and that is what is really important in my mind. I am always going to come across problems. Nothing can change that. But at least now I know how to deal with this particular one.
  
• Skies
  Over Chuseok, the skies were mercifully blue white meringue clouds floating through them, and I tried again and again to capture the skies the way that I wanted them. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn't, but I did learn a couple of things about capturing skies and clouds. One of the techniques that I returned to again and again was setting the ISO on 100 and taking photographs like that. This led to a number of problems in itself, one of the main ones being that everything else in the photograph became impossibly dark, and didn't always work the way that I wanted it to, but it is a technique that I feel worked fairly well for the most part. I know that there are other ways to go about capturing a blue sky, but lacking that knowledge, I am particularly proud of myself for figuring out a way to get it done.
  
• Lights
  One of the first photos that I took was of the view of Cheongju from a bridge in Shinae. My friend, Maria, was getting increasingly irritated with me as I kept trying and failing to get the photograph right and I was getting increasingly frustrated with myself as well. The lights and reflections just weren't coming out the way that I wanted them to. I was very VERY new to photography and was still reluctant to play with settings too much and was still having big problems with camera shake. When I finally got the photograph right, I couldn't stop grinning. It felt like such an accomplishment! Since then, I have come to learn how to capture lights in photographs and have succeeded in doing so on a number of occasions, low shutter speeds, wide apertures and medium ISOs being the trick as far as I can tell.
  
• Panoramic
  
  
  I only started playing with panoramic very recently, mostly because I only figured out I had continuous shooting recently (with my manual on my computer, I don't find myself turning to it all that often but prefer to find things for myself). Once I figured out I had continuous shooting, I had to try it out and my first panoramic image was born. I have already received criticism about it (the same someone who criticised my butterfly image), but again, I was particularly proud at having accomplished something new. Once the pictures were taken, the next step was learning how to put them together, and I tried three different programs before finally braving Photoshop. So the resulting image was a particularly special one to me - not only was it my first panoramic, but it was my first Photoshop attempt as well. I am looking forward to playing with them both some more.

So my month of daily photography has not been without it's challenges, but it has been a month of learning, and I am certainly looking forward to doing more of that. Some of the things that I am looking forward to learning more about: Shooting in black and white (rather than editing into B&W later), more panoramic and of different types, playing with exposure settings, fiddling with photoshop and shooting videos.