You go your way, I'll go mine

 

Downtown Gangneung Shop Window

Ready for the rice harvest

 

When farmers are ready to harvest a rice field, they cut a small section by hand so there is a space for the harvester to get into the field. The workers have brought food and drink in blue insulated bags. There is a helmet, so someone probably came by scooter. I can't explain the pink bathroom slippers.

Blue Wall

 

Downtown Gangneung

Emart Trip

 Earlier this week I cycled to Emart with a camera.

Set to colour on the way to the supermarket.

Switched to black and white when I arrived. Actually, after I did a colour version of this wall and didn't like it that much.

Still black and white on the way home.

I still felt like making a photo even after I got home. The view from my living room.

Slump

 There are only three photos so far in my September folder. I made them on a walk early in the month with the Nikon D850 and they are just variations on photos I've made before. Though, dare I say, they are slightly better than previous versions.

Other than a couple of iPhone snapshots I took to send to friends, that's all I have on the computer right now. I have five rolls of film waiting to be sent off after the harvest festival holiday, but I'm pretty sure there's not much on them. Snapshots, mostly. Underexposed photos of the cat, shaky photos from when I didn't have much light, and so on. Maybe I'll be surprised. Maybe I will weep for the wasted film and money.

The reason I've made so few photos is that I'm in a bit of a slump. I'm tired of all the places within bicycle range, I'm dissatisfied with digital photos, and a new semester of online classes has sapped my energy. I think there are solutions to these problems - buy a car, think of a new way to photograph the same things, use more film (which I did, but not well or seriously), and create a better schedule for work that will give me more energy for the things I enjoy. However, I don't want to buy a car and maybe I'm not creative enough to have new perspectives on old subjects.

But I decided that I can work on my photography skills during this down time. I could do that on a digital camera, but the most challenging and satisfying way to improve my skills might be slide film. There's no room for mistakes in exposure and the cost will make me careful. My plan for forcing myself to compose carefully is to have photos printed straight from the film with no cropping or levelling by me in computer. Iron-man photography.

But.

I have a roll of Ektachrome in the camera now and it's about half used. I enjoy setting up the camera on a tripod and being very careful about everything, but every time I press the shutter release button I think about how expensive it's going to be to have the film developed. And how much the film itself costs. A roll of Ektachrome costs about 28,000 Won and development is 6,000 Won. Compare to a roll of Ektar negative film which costs 19,000 Won, but is easy to find on sale for about 15,000 or a bit lower. Development costs 3,000 Won. Half the price of slide film. Slide film is lovely stuff, but next year I will very likely be unemployed and won't have much money for luxuries (the missus is working, so I won't starve).  After I use up my two rolls of Ektachrome I think I will try some Ektar to see how it compares. And I'll be careful with exposure and framing, just as I would with the Ektar. I've used it in the past with poor results, but that may have been my fault. Or the lab's fault? Maybe I can also start comparing labs. Well, we'll see. Whatever film I choose, I can probably afford one roll a week. And there's always digital if I can't afford that . . . .

Although I'm tired of going to the same places over and over, yesterday I found a new location with some potential. I took a taxi to the Obong Reservoir, but it turned out to be very un-photogenic.  Not only that, the weather forecast said the afternoon would be cloudy, but almost as soon as I arrived the clouds parted and the sun came out in full force. Bugger. I decided to go home so I walked to a bus stop. The first bus that showed up wasn't going straight back to Gangneung. It was going out into the countryside and then returning. Not having anything else to do, I decided to have a little bus tour of Wangsan Township. Well! What a lovely place up in the mountains it is. It's an alpine valley with mountains, houses, fields, and a stream. The last bus stop is near a temple. When the weather is decent again, I plan to take the bus to the last stop and then walk back towards Gangneung. Maybe I'll find some good scenes to photograph, and even if I don't, I'll have had a pleasant walk. And maybe it'll take me out of my slump.

Here's hoping.

Myeongju Royal Tomb

(I wrote this almost two weeks ago and then forgot about it. Oops.)

I like to visit the tomb of King Myeongju from time to time because there are few people and no sounds of traffic, spitting, or screaming children (a few of the delights of apartment living).  At the bottom of the tomb site are a number of buildings where the king's ancestors do ancestral rites, probably once a year. There is also a large lot, which provides parking for people visiting the tomb, participating in the ancestral rites, or going up the hiking trail that goes past the tomb. There is a park nearby, but I've never seen anyone in it besides myself. When I visited in August it was mostly grown over.

I made the photos on my Fujifilm X-T4 and used a Kodak E100G film simulation on them in Lightroom. I'm not sure it really looks like E100G (my favourite film until it was discontinued), but it's easy to make decent looking photos with just one click. I'm really bad at post-processing, so I'm grateful for any help I can get.

There are a number of statues at the parking lot level of the site. Royal tombs usually have warriors and scholars. If I remember my history correctly, these were the two main branches of government at the time. Though I might be wrong.

A detail from the statue of the scholar.

Two views of a smaller scholar statue next to the tomb.

The tomb's altar seen through a stone lantern.

This scholar held my bag while I took some refreshment. 

This looks like a statue of a monk. This king lived before the Confucians decided the Buddhists had too. much power and started tearing down their temples and stripping them of power.

A view down the hill from the tomb.

One of the parking lot scholar statues.

And his warrior mate across the way.

The overgrown park.

It's the season for these tiny blue flowers. I wish I knew the name of them. They are my favourite flowers.

When you're feeling fierce and pretty at the same time.

I found what I think are interesting new perspectives of the tomb this time. I'd like to go back again soon before the grass starts to die. I might take colour film this time. I have some Kodak Proimage 100 and I think it'll look good.

 

Un-Straight

 

Parked Trucks