Day 157

Today's photo is of the chess tournament that I had with David at Pearl Jam. It was a fierce game, that I ended up winning - a feat that I am particularly proud of because I have never been very good at chess. So, today's picture is of the winning board.

Shutter speed: 1/13
Aperture: f/2.5
ISO: 2000
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 156

On my way home today, it started snowing. I still love the snow, despite what others may feel, and I like it best when it is falling because it is as though the flakes are dancing around in the air. So today's photo is of dancing snowflakes. Enjoy.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/2.5
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 155

Today's photo is quite a silly one. It is of one of the bags that I got from the Artbox (another of my favourite stores in Korea).

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/2.5
ISO: 160
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 154

Today's photo was a difficult choice once again. I almost decided to upload a number of photos once more because they came out so nicely. In the end I decided on this one because it was one of the photos that I particularly liked but was not able to put on facebook. It is of my friend JiAe smoking a cigarette, and I really love the classic feel to it.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/2.5
ISO: 1250
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 153

Okay, today's photos will make up for Monday's missed day. Okay, I just couldn't decide which one I liked more. So sue me! The first picture comes from the coffee shop where I spent the afternoon chatting to Ross. They decorate using coffee beans, which I thought was both genius and beautiful, and I decided to take advantage of it by capturing this shot.


Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 160
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Later in the evening I ended up at the Ethnic Bar in Cheongju, where you can go to indulge in the joys of fruit soju while smoking a hubbly bubbly. I ended up playing around quite a bit and managed to capture this shot of my friend Emma smoking the okkah.


Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 2500
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 152

Today's photo isn't a good one, but as I had to put one up, I chose this. It is of the jewellery box that I bought from Clue.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 1250
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 151

I did remember to take a picture today! Today's picture is of the fan that I bought for myself during the summer with it's delicate writing. Japanese? Chinese? I have no idea. But it is rather lovely!

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 160
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 150

I forgot to take a picture today. I have no real excuse. I have no idea what made me forget. I am sorry.

Day 149

Today's photo is something a little different. I was playing with my extension tubes once again and captured this shot which I thought looked a little arty and different. It is the peeling paint from the Pearl Jam sign in Chungdae. I just thought it was interesting and that it made a good daily picture.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 148

Once again, today's photo is more about the subjects than the composition. I took so many photos at Dawn's farewell that choosing one for today's picture was a daunting task. But I decided on this one of my friends Shaina and Rob because I think that it is just captured their relationship perfectly. Look at the way he is looking at her. That is a man in love if ever there was one.

Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 3200
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 147

Today's photo is not necessarily a good one in terms of structure and placement, but it is of a subject that I rather like. Everyone, meet my favourite student - Ryu Seong-Ryok. He is the student who comes up with such comments as: "Teacher, you look like rabbit" and is the one who was so thrilled when I told him about my winter camp and so upset when I told him about my leaving. He is also a really good student, which helps.

Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 250
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 146

Throughout my winter camp, I gave my students stars for completing activities first or completing them well. On the last day of the camp, I decided to buy some prizes for the students to buy with their stars. Not wanting to overload them with candy, I decided to make my way to Daiso - the Korean equivalent of a dollar store. It is one of my favourite stationary places because everything is so much fun, so I decided to buy them some stationary to buy. Today's photo is of some of the crayon erasers that the students could choose to buy.

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 640
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 145

During my Thai vacation, I bought a number of beautiful sarongs. Today's photo was a close-up shot of one of them where you can see the beautiful material and the wonderful glitter (particularly wonderful when you look at the unfocussed specks.)

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/00
ISO: 1000
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 144

I have taken photos of my jewellery before, and have even taken a photo of this specific piece of jewellery before, but I particularly liked the conjunction of the silver and the gold, the diamond and the crystal and overall I just loved the way that this photo came out.

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/00
ISO: 2500
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 143

One of the things that I desperately wanted to get before leaving Korea was one of the fluffy animal hats that they sell on the side of the road. I came across this one in the week before this picture was taken, and being an Aries, I couldn't resist buying it (for those that cannot see, the hat is a ram.) Upon coming home and trying it on, I discovered much to my delight that the ram had paws, and this made me love it even more. So, today's photo is of my ram with paws.

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 250
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 142

Today saw me deciding what clothes to send home and which to give away to charity. I was not alone in this venture. Amy and Jess came over to help me decide what I was allowed to take back with me. Today's picture is a pile of some of the discarded items that are going towards the clothing swap that I am going to have before I leave.

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 3200
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 141

I have become a giant giant fan of sticker photos. So today's photo is of some of the sticker photos that were taken on Day 140, but that I then photographed on Day 141. Confused? I can see why. In any case, sticker photos are just those little booths like the ones that they have back home where you go in and take photos of yourself and your friends. What makes them so much cooler though is that more people can fit into a booth and after the photos are taken, you can then go around back and spend some time graffiti-ing them like we did to the picture above.

Shutter speed: 1/100
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 3200
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm 3.5-5.6 II

Day 140

I have a lot of photos to catch you up on! So, I will start with this one for day 140: playing with my extension tubes once more, I snapped this shot of the top of a glass coke bottle. I am really fond of the lighting and the way that the cracks in the surface of the bottle top show up. So yay!

Shutter Speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/00
ISO: 1000
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 139

What I love about my toy is the artistic edge that the large depth of field adds to the photo. By making everything else blurry, it makes it difficult at times to tell what the photo is of, and I quite like that. Today's photo is representative of that. It is a picture of beansprouts on top of some tofu. Would you have guessed it?

Shutter speed: 1/50
ISO: 200
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II with extenstion tube.

Day 138

And finally we arrive at the day where I make up all the sessions that I have missed over the last two weeks. As I explained a few weeks ago, I bought a new toy recently - a set of extension tubes that I have been practicing with. One of the problem with the tubes, however, is that they require you get very close to your subject and hold very very still, something that I am not too good at doing. But I thought that for today's post, I would show you exactly what it is that they do.

So this is a photo that was taken with my Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II lens.


Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 1600

This photo was taken with the same lens, but with one ring from the extension tube attached.


Shutter speed: 1/50
ISO: 640


This photo was taken with two rings.


Shutter speed: 1/50
ISO: 1250


This photo was taken with three rings.


Shutter speed: 1/50
ISO: 3200

The last photo is not one that I am particularly fond of, however it does go to show what the extension tube can do given the right circumstances. I hope this project makes up for the missed days.

Day 137

Today I was desperately searching for something to photograph, and I decided on some of the sarongs that I bought in Thailand. One of these is meant as a gift for someone, but I cannot decide which one to part with because I love them all to pieces.

Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: 3.2
ISO: 3200
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 136

Once again, I forgot to take a photo on this day, but if you once again refer to day 138 for my make-up session, I hope you will forgive me considering the effort that went into that assignment. It was done to make up for this lapse in my memory, after all.

Day 135

Sunday saw me doing what I love best - playing with kitties! A new cat cafe has opened up in Cheongju, and I took the opportunity to buy an expensive cup of tea and play with some kitty cats. Not many of them were particularly playful, but they were rather lovely to look at (for the most part anyway - some of the shaved ones were not my favourites.) Of course, I took this opportunity to whip out my camera and get snapping, and I managed to take some great pictures. Today's choice though had to be of the wonderful fluffy giant.

Shutter speed: 1/60
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 250
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 134

Today's photo is certainly not one of the greats, but it will just have to do. I went out for Buddaejjigae with Amy on Saturday night, and today's photo is of the gas being lit for cooking the meal.

Shutter speed: 1/160
Aperture: f/3.2
ISO: 3200
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 133

I forgot to take a photo once again today, but I have made up for it later in the week - look at my post for day 138 for my make-up session. Sorry!

Day 132

Amy convinced me to cook once again on Thursday, though chopping and dicing can hardly be called cooking. I produced a salad that was met with great enthusiasm (apparently I am a good salad-maker... who knew!) and was served with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing that I cunningly spied at Home Plus.

Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 320
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 131

Today I went to Seoul with Amy and Chanel. The main aim for Amy was doing some gift shopping for people back home. My main aim was to pick up my iPod Touch, which I am officially in love with. In between there was dinner, clothes shopping and looking at the Christmas lights in Myeongdong that remained days after the event itself, much to my delight. Today's picture is of a part of the Christmas lights display that I particularly enjoyed - the Polar Bear Igloo.

Shutter speed: 1/250
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 400
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 130

Tuesday night involved dinner at MJ's. It wasn't my first choice, but since Pearl Jam opened late and I wasn't able to get my burrito, Ross and I decided that MJ's would just have to do. As we walked into the bar, the first thing I noticed was the festive cheer that was covering the place, which seemed to be epitomised in this drawing of a reindeer wearing a Santa hat and wishing everyone a happy new year. I thought it made for an appropriate picture of the day.

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 1600
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 129

One of the gifts that I bought for myself while I was in Thailand was a most giant handbag. This served an important purpose on our return to Korea, as it meant we could stash a number of things into it to save the weight of our check-in luggage. It will also serve as a reminder of the trip!

Shutter speed: 1/20
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 500
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 128

Our last day in Thailand was spent running around Bangkok. As we only had nine hours in the city, our time was very limited and we had to fit as much into it as we could. In the end, we only managed to visit the Grand Palace (and the Wat Phruk Kaew Temple) and the Chatuchak market (excuse me if any of these things are misspelled or mispronounced). I decided that my last picture of the trip needed to be something vaguely historical, and so I have decided to put up this picture of a miniature temple within the Grand Palace district that also shows our only day of clear, blue skies.

Shutter speed: 1/200
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II

Day 127

I remember the last time I had a coconut. And no, I don't mean a piece of coconut or a sprinkling of coconut - I mean an actual coconut - flesh, milk and all. It was when my parents went to the Seychelles when I was about 5 years old, and they brought one back for our family to share. I also remember hating it. That didn't stop me from trying again, though. When we arrived at a restaurant and saw young coconuts on the menu, Jess and I couldn't help ourselves and ended up ordering one each. And they were lovely - refreshing, delicious and generally far better than I remembered. So today's photo is of our coconuts.

Shutter speed: 1/30
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO: 800
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II

Day 126

I struggled to pick a picture for today. There was so much going on and so many of the pictures turned out so well that I couldn't decide which one I wanted to represent the day. But, I ended up deciding that no trip to Thailand could be documented without mention of the beautiful waters. This picture was taken after a harrowing journey up and down some make-shift stairs, but the view of the lagoon was priceless.

Shutter speed: 1/160
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 125

There is nothing quite like being in a tropical paradise. One of the touches to these places that I particularly enjoy are the flowers. We get frangipanis back home, and in fact frangipanis have a bit of a history in my family - they were the flowers that made up my mother's bouquet at her wedding, and whenever I see them, my mind always immediately jumps to a picture that I have in my photo album back home of her walking down the aisle with frangipanis in her hair. And yet, seeing them in Thailand, they just seemed to fit there so much better than anywhere else, and so today's photo is of the frangipani that was waiting for us on our arrival in the room.

Shutter speed: 1/100
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 250
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 124

A large part of our trip revolved around travel. Traveling from Cheongju to Seoul, from Seoul to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Koh Samui and that was just getting there, nevermind coming back! And so, a lot of our time was spent in airports like this one with people milling around. This was a photo that I always wanted to take, and it came out almost exactly the way I imagined it. The only part that isn't quite right is that I had imagined taking it with more people. It unfortunately didn't work out that way, but I am happy with the picture nonetheless.

Shutter speed: 1.0
Aperture: f/22
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 123

In all the rushing around, I forgot to take a photograph for today. But, I thought I would make up for it by posting the video that I took upon arriving at our hotel in Koh Samui. It is from two days later, but I feel that, as it is my first video, it is a worthy replacement.

You can watch the video here.

Mistakes that I made: I started panning too quickly while taking the video, and I also started turning it in different directions, not realising how difficult it would be to correct it again. I have yet to find a program that will help me with this. If anyone knows of one, please do let me know. My voice also ended up sounding a bit too loud. Basically, I have a lot of work to do before my video-taking will be in tip-top shape, but I am willing to put the effort in.

Day 122

I hate packing things. I am not one of those people who can just throw stuff into a bag or a box. Everything must be neatly folded and put away, and it is a very stressful, time consuming activity that I have had to do over and over again and am looking at doing at least twice more before the end of March. Anyway, today's photo is of my bag being packed for Thailand. I had to buy an entirely new bag as my own was way too small and I have a serious problem with over-packing. But, you know what? I love it. Why? It's PURPLE!! <3

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 500
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 121

Today's photo is not one of the best that I have taken, but I love it anyway! I realised the day after Christmas that the river near my house had frozen over, and I rushed out to take some pictures of it. This was the shot that I got of the frozen river with some of the water running over the ice. It makes me smile.

Shutter speed: 1/200
Aperture: 5.0
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 120

It's the most wonderful time of the year, or so some singer said... but as a Jew, Christmas isn't all that special to me. Nevertheless, I always celebrate it with my family, and I knew that this Christmas was going to be a rough one as my grandparents, the reason for my celebrating Christmas in the first place, both passed away in March. I didn't want to spend the day alone, and it ended up being a wonderful day filled with friends and laughter. Undoubtedly the highlight of my day, however, was opening up my Christmas card from Amy on Christmas morning and seeing my own personalised Jewish Christmas card. I had to take a photo of it, and I think it is perfectly appropriate for this to be today's photo.

Shutter speed: 1/25
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 200
Lens: Canon EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6II

Day 119

I feel a little bad because Amy is my subject once again for today, but at the EPIK dinner, I couldn't help taking this picture of her wonderful earrings, and the whole thing just turned out so nicely that I had to put it up as my photo of the day. Sorry Amy for using you once again!

Shutter Speed: 1/10
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 118

Christmas - that time of the year when people get together to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by bestowing expensive gifts upon one another. I kind of went overboard this festive season with the gift buying, and today's photo is of my stash of gifts waiting to be given to my friends.

Shutter Speed: 1/30
Aperture: f/1.8
ISO: 100
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II

Day 117

Once again, I decided to play with my lens extender. Now that I have figured out how it works, I intend to take many many pictures using it. Unfortunately, this one is still a little out of focus (I think they all will be until I buy myself a tripod), but the aim came across nonetheless.

Shutter speed: 1/50
Aperture: f/0.0
ISO: 400
Lens: Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II