Got the last word

Let’s face it, if there is one thing that people love it is food and taking pictures of it. Food shots done right can make what would normally be just a boring soup into something magical. I used scoff at the young college girls who would post about their food, but now I just cringe (if it is not done right). What I love about food photography in restaurants is that it is challenging and there is no “food magic” it is all real. What I mean by “food magic” is that a lot of the commercial food shots that you see are not really food at all. They are made to look like food but many times the milk splashes are food props and the milk is not even milk at all! However, at the restaurant, what you see is what you get.

The Shot: What you want is a shot that draws the focus to the food itself showing the detail and making it look delicious. Typically the plate and every thing else should be clean and neatly arranged on the table. In more Korean restaurants, you would have the luxury of a lot of dishes so you can play around with the boils and shapes as a background.

The Location: Typically choose a table with the best light and/or light source. I have found that Korean restaurants tend to be brighter than the trendy western style ones, so you may not have a problem with the lighting but bring a small tripod or table-top tripod just in case.

The Set-up: Go with your gut and I mean that! Shoot what draws you to the food. Get a couple overhead shots and some plate shots but really dig to find what draws you to the food. I almost always shoot with my 50mm wide open at F/1.4, I just love blurring out everything but the details that make me drool.

The Post-processing: Typically you want to make the food look it’s best and to do so you normally need warm bright colors. Typically I only shoot in raw, so photoshop’s camera makes warming up the tones quite easy but these days, pretty much every piece of camera editing software can do it. The trick here is to make the food look clean and editable. Another thing to look out for is plates. If you warm up everything too much you are going to notice it in the plates. Now typically Korean restaurants don’t have those huge white plates with the tiny bits of food on them like expensive western restaurants, but it is still something to look out  for. If it does become a problem, I have found that cooling off the photo via a cooling filter may do the trick or bumping up the magentas if everything looks too blue.

So I picked up a great ebook by James Brandon and it was great! In there he talked about a number very useful techniques that will help improve the sharpness of your photos before they hit photoshop! This is something that we all need to take a bit of time and study rather than relying on the myriad of techniques to compensate for what should have been taken care before hitting the shutter release.

One of the most surprising ideas was the use of the AF-on button for focusing. I won’t go into too much detail so that I don’t take anything away from James, but I want to share my discoveries from this past weekend. This little trick could solve a great deal of problems, or just piss you off if you forget that you turned it on.

What you basically do is move the focus lock to the af-on button and away from the shutter release. Why? Have you ever focused on a subject only to hit the shutter and find that the lighting fast lens you bought refocused “lightning-fast” on the ground behind your subject? Yup, that is why. I know everyone will go on and on about pressing the button half-way and how it is more convenient, but trust me this helps.

For me it works well in many aspects of my photography. For HDR, at times (if you are not paying attention), the camera can refocus and you get an annoying blurred image with the stack of bracketed shots. Also if you are shooting with a wide aperture like f/2.8 or larger then you will know the challenges when it comes to focus and where you want to draw that attention to.

I am still getting used to having the focus button somewhere else but I am liking the focus lock because I can focus on a certain spot, recompose and know that when I press the shutter release that the camera is not going to change anything. For me that is the what I like it. My wife likes it too because I swear less when I am composing shots.

Of course, you can just switch to manual focus and not have to worry about any of this, but I still find this method better. You just have to take a peek into your camera’s custom settings and change it. If you don’t like it you can just change it back.

One of the main advantages to this method is that when you shoot HDR or time lapse, where you are taking a series of shots, you want to lock out the focus to make sure everything stays the same. Normally, I just switch the lens to manual focus and that’s that, but on my wide-angle tokina the switch is the entire focusing ring and thus, moves a bit when you switch it to manual.

With the back-button focusing, you just hit the button right by your thumb and boom! everything is in focus and nicely locked up. You don’t have to worry about the camera refocusing the next time press the shutter release.

Another great feature about using this function is the fact in low light situations where my 30D sometimes fights to find a spot to focus on, you have the freedom to move the camera around find a focus point, lock the focus and position/compose the frame.

All in all this is a handy little feature to use when you want to get the sharpest shots that you can. As I said, it may get a little annoying at first but after a while it becomes second nature.

I must admit at times I really wonder who created the “12 scenic Sights of Ulsan” as some areas fall short of the mark. One being the view of the petrochemical complex at night. You can find that one on the top of Muryongsan, yet the view is kilometers away and not exactly the one they picture. With that being said, the Jujeon Coast and the Black Pebble Beach is quite nice.

This is always a special spot because I took my wife there on our first date. It was a great night, where we got caught in the rain and drank coffee out of the little trucks that were parked along the beach. That was many years ago and they have started to improve the area quite a bit since then which sort of takes a bit of the charm away… no more little tucks selling hand-drip coffee.

One of the improvements is the pagoda-shaped lighthouse-thingy that seemed like has just been completed when I was there last weekend. It was still blocked off but the barricade was kicked down and peopel were passing back and forth freely like it was there at all. So, we took that cue and went out to take a look.

The coastal area is tucked just behind Dong-gu’s Namok area and for those that don’t know Ulsan very well that is the area to your left as you pass Ulsan’s famous Hyundai Motors Factory on your way out to Bangeojin. The have also improved the road out there quite a bit by cutting a nice path through the mountain.

The shops and services are slowly improving but not quite close to Ilsan beach just yet. The Jujeon beach is a rock beach consisting of baseball-sized stones worn smooth from the ocean. So it is not your typical sandy beach like Ilsan or Haeundae. However, it is charming to take a walk around.

Eating is more towards the fresh seafood shops as is standard in beach areas in Korea. There are numerous Hwaet-jibs to choose from but unlike the pushy places in other areas, places here are pretty laid back. However, if raw fish is not your cup of tea there  are a few chicken, jajeong places off the main beach road too.

Slowly little coffee shops have opened up and I am really looking to explore these more. They started off as little trucks parked in the parking lots along the beach but now they are getting formal shops. These shops are not the greatest for roasting house coffee but they are located close to the beach and some will have places to sit outside which is nice.

So what can you seen when you go there? Aside from the seaside you can catch a glimpse of some wind generators, a Goliath crane from Hyundai and local fishermen going about their business.

This is still one of those places that is just relaxing and a great place to go and shoot. Early mornings are probably your best bet to capture the area without a lot of people. It does get pretty busy on the weekends  and the few coffee shops and places do get overwhelmed as there are not a lot of modern places to choose from out there.

How to Get There:

If you are coming into town from the Taehwagang Station, head towards the Asano road which is what will take you past Hyundai Motors and towards Hyundai Heavy Industries. Take a left and head towards the village of Namok. From there you can follow the signs straight to the beach.

After reading about a recent rags-to-riches (in a manner of speaking) story courtesy of 500px, realized what many of us have been doing in Korea has become a “trend” Roof Topping seems to be the new thing in photography where people head to the roofs of buildings and take photos from it.

The story on one Torontonian photographer Tom Ryaboi and how his one image made him a huge success, inspired me because it showed how it takes one simple image to get you noticed. Sure I have been climbing up to the tops of roofs around Ulsan for years and I am not famous, but it just takes the right shot, at the right moment to get the right exposure.

So with that in mind, I got to the top of the CGV Building in the Old Downtown of Ulsan and got some cool shots of the city. I was also thinking about collecting a list of roof tops in Korea to shoot from as this is one of the more popular questions that I get. So if you have a place that you can get to the roof of, in Korea, please drop it in the comment section below with any details on how to get up there. I can then put together a list for people looking to get some “rooftopping” done

I will start the list with Ulsan:

CGV Building

Location: Shinae/Seungnam Dong

Details: The CGV building over looks the Taehwa River and sits next to the Exordium and Lotte Castle Towers. There is a park on the roof that is barely in use and at night is abandoned. To get to the top take the elevator to the 14th floor and hit the hit the stairs, there is also an external stair case if you feel like getting some exercise. You can take the elevator down from the 15ht floor when you return.

Family Tower

Location: Shinae/Seungnam Dong, Right next door to the CGV building.

Details: This is located right next to the CGV area and offers a better view of the Taehwa River Park and area. The top floor is vacant, so you can take the elevator right to the top and then the stairs to the roof.

Weltz Tower

Location: Mugeo-dong, on the opposite side from the Namoon Plaza towards Ulsan University.

Details: The Weltz Towers overlook the Sinbok Rotary and mugeo area. There is a nice rood top park up there and instant elevator access.

Namoon Plaza

Location: Mugeo-dong, just past Sinbok rotary towards the samhoe bridge.

Details: Namoon Plaza overlooks the opposite-side of the Sinbok Rotary and offers more of a view of the mountains and area. It is much harder to get to because the top floor is a buffet restaurant and the stairs to the roof are located inside he restaurant. If you get of on the 17th floor and take the stair there, it will be a lot easier.

Dentist Building across from Lotte Department Store

Location: Samsan-dong, across from the Lotte Multi Plaza and Next to Outback Steakhouse

Details: This place offers the best views of the Lotte Wheel and area. The top floor is easy to get to and very quiet.

Tempo Building

Location: Above the gonguptap Rotary

Details: This building offers an unobstructed view of the area and unparalleled view of the rotary. Take the elevator to the top and head up the stairs. Go out the door to the roof and take a right and climb the ladder. From here you can see all of the city and it is great.

Above the Wedding Shop

Location: Taehwa Rotary

Details: With a large billboard on the roof, it may be tough to get the the ledge as you have to crawl under the supports but the views of the Rotary are worth it. The elevator will take you most of the way to the top. This building is mostly empty so, don’t expect too much company.

Aderia Apartments

Location: Next to the aging Taehwa Hotel and the shiny new apartments.

Details: Newer apartments are a lot harder to get to the roof because of the doors. If you ask the guards or wait until someone arrives that can buzz you up. These apartments offer a great deal of views from over the Taehwa River park to across the city.

The camera strap is one of those things that comes in the box and most people don’t even think about. They just stick it on the camera and BOOM that’s that. However for those of us who have had the unfortunate displeasure of lugging around a 70-200mm lens stuck on a DSLR with a battery pack, you will soon realize that a comfortable strap in something of a necessity. For others, the standard Nikon or Canon straps are too “boring” and they want to express themselves a little bit more or just make their black box stand out from the rest.

iMo straps are a Hong Kong based company that makes custom straps for cameras. They offer a great selection of cotton and neoprene straps in a beautiful array of colours and patterns. I was lucky enough to be sent a few to check out. These straps give a bit of life to your camera and perhaps a bit of comfort too. Each strap is handmade upon ordering and uses quality leather and high-end webbing to make sure that your camera always stays around your neck.

There are basically two main lines; Cotton straps and Neoprene straps. They also offer a gift set and a new Jaquard Strap line which is similar to the neoprene straps but with an Indian Mirror design. The cotton straps are designed for smaller cameras and thus have smaller webbing and less padding but will work as well for your DSLR and can even hold up to 180 lbs. One of the cool things that I notice about these straps was that they have a comfortable but grippy patch on the back that keeps everything from sliding around. With a lighter camera, these straps work well and look great. If you are one of those who have a micro four-thirds or mirrorless pancake-lens camera, then these are a perfect match. However, they still work and look great on larger DSLRs.

They also offer neoprene straps that are designed for heavier DSLR cameras. If you have never tried a neoprene strap then I suggest that you switch over. The benefit of a neoprene strap is that the material acts like a springy cushion for your heavy camera. These straps also have quick-releases which are quite handy in certain situations. I mostly use these when I am set up with my tripod on windy days (like this weekend). The camera straps pop on and off with ease and can hold up to a whopping 120 lbs! Again, these come in a wide variety of colours and patterns. If the bright colours or flashy patterns are not your thing, they also come in solid colours too. Check out their product line here.

Quality leather

The patterns go from cheerful to beautiful solid colours and there is a lot of variety found on their site. If you are looking for something to take a bit of the weight off then these would be your straps. While they may not have the contoured design like the lowepro Voyager C, I wore these around on the weekend and it was very comfortable even with a big lens on. The neoprene does its job very well and the colourful pattern really adds some personality to your camera rather just showing off what brand it is.

Comfortable Neoprene

The cool thing about these straps is that they are hand-made as soon as you order them! You know that care and precision when into designing and creating the straps. I like the idea that they are made just for you, as soon as you order, few places off this kind of service. Soon there will be pockets to go along with these straps as well and I am looking forward to that.

All in all I am happy with these straps and for the prices from $22 to $26 they all affordable and a great purchase.

Special Offer! From now until May 12th iMo will give you 30% off your order using the coupon code: sajin

Contest! Write a comment below and you will be entered to win one of these awesome straps! 

Something I was thinking about while enjoying a cup of coffee

There are tons of ads and materials to waste your money on that may get you more traffic to your site and possibly a new career in photography but, is it all worth it? Recently, I have been giving a lot of thought about where to take my passion and drive. However, As a teacher in South Korea, you sometimes get the feeling that there is only so much that you can do. The truth of the matter is that while you are living here, you can achive anything. Just look at Simon and Martina from Eat Your Kimchi.

I respect them because they show you that if you produce something that you are passionate about you will get noticed, but you do have to be committed to what you do. If you look at a lot of the “producers of Korea” as I like to call them, they are pounding out the material at an insane pace.

Everyday, I see new and amazing shots from Sungjin Kim, Robert Koehler, Justin Howard,  Jimmy McIntyre and the whole horde of awesome photographers. Dylan Goldby and Flash Parker and constantly running workshops and producing professional shots for a publications across the globe. Chris Backe and Steve Miller are running circles around the country taking shots and filming in different locations to bring you new and interesting stories. They leave me breathless just trying to keep up with just reading their blogs. Gregory Curely is writing for numerous publications around Korea and the world.  These are just a few names that will come up when you are looking for talented people producing great work in Korea. It is no wonder that I constantly see these people getting better and better at their craft and they are getting noticed!

So, if you ever wonder why National Geographic, Google, The Korea Tourism Organization and anyone else is NOT beating down your door to give you that dream contract, you have to look at what you are contributing. I am assuming that you are probably a decent photographer/blogger, so it goes without question that you have talent. It is just how often you produce that quality.

The internet is a fickle creature. Think of it a lot like a news feed on a facebook page. You could get a lot of hits one day and be lost in the mix the next. The trick is to commit yourself like “The Producers” above and commit yourself to putting out a consistent effort. This also goes for Flickr and 500px as well. I think we are all guilty of the “Dump and Run” where we drop 50 photos of the site without titles, tags, descriptions, exif data, etc.  Hell, I still do that…. not proud to admit that, but I am resisting the urge to just give a title and the most obvious tags imaginable.

By staggering your image uploads and taking the time to give the proper information will allow people to find your work. For those that are already following you, one or two photos will keep you at the top of the page and not overload them.  If I see 50 photos uploaded, I may get through a few but chances are that I won’t make it through all of them. So stagger them out over more time and chances are your followers will keep up.

Other than that, there is no magic mix to bring more traffic or people to your site or photos. There is no program, pluggin, service or app that will draw people to you. Follow your passion, staying on top of your game and producing great work, over time, will draw the internet to you. So with that being said, get out there and produce something!!! Make it yours and keep at it!!

You have all seen this same photo around and it may have put a few of you off from going there. It may have prompted some of you to go there. The fact of the matter is that Anapji Pond in Gyeongju is a beautiful place to visit when the weather is nice.

While the blossoms may have fallen, it is still a great time to head out to Gyeongju and relax in this popular site. The best time to visit, in order to get the “standard Anapji shot” is just after the sun touches down during the blue hour. However, this is the exact time that people go to shoot and trust me, you will no be alone, nor will your shots be original. Should that keep you from going? Hell, no! Go out and mingle. Find a new angle or go at a different time.

For the most part, visitors shuffle past along the paths at a fairly quick speed, so it is best to stake your claim on a spot that is out of the way enough that people won’t bump into you and you are not blocking the way. The earlier you get there, the larger the chance of getting in the right spot for that typical shot. I would advise you to set up early, get a few snaps and move on. Walk around the area and find some different angles and views. Give your spot to the next photographer standing in line.

Other than that, this is a great experiment in finding new angles to popular sites. Something that breathes new life into attractions that are overshot shot due to their beauty. Dylan Goldby has the perfect idea in his post about this famous place. He gives some great advice for not getting that “standard shot”

As I posted yesterday, I “was” going out to get some shots of the cherry blossoms around Ulsan. I was, really… I was. However, after having a most amazing lunch with my wife and then some coffee, just as the sun was getting about right we saw black smoke. Initially we went to investigate but it was too far away to get to in the time that we had. However, after dropping off my wife, I did what any photographer with a 70-200mm f/2.8 in his bag would do… go check it out.

It wasn’t hard to find and I had thought that I had missed the action as I pulled up. However, the fire had not finished and spread to a near by pile of garbage. It wasn’t anything big but there were a few onlookers (myself included) and traffic was being directed away. Strangely enough, it was farming as usual for the family directly below the flaming farm.

At any rate, I will try and get out today and get some shots. Hopefully I can come up with something new.

For this first post for what I hope to be a great series, I am going to give you a sort of mission and a place (if you are close by) to try and shoot. If you get something good, I will post if on next weeks edition. At any rate, the blossoms have sprung down here in Ulsan I am off to try and get some great shots. It is such an amazing time, but I think that these precious little flowers have been over shot in the typical sense. So your mission for this weekend is to check out the blossoms and find a new creative angle to shoot.

I guess the trick for me is to look at what everyone else has done and then try something new. Try HDR (if you haven’t already), try macro, black and white, work your composition and see what happens. Let me know how this works out for you. I would love to see what people get.

At any rate, today I am off to Seosaengpo, (awesome write up on it by Ed at Tigers and Magpies) the Japanese fortress to check out how things are doing down there. I love this area and I am pleased to see that they are slowly improving the local infrastructure of Jinha to meet the times. By that I mean taking the beach area and putting in cafes and restaurants. I am all for local charm but the Jinha beach area that holds international events like beach volleyball and windsurfing competitions was looking a little worn out. At any rate, it looks much better now and will probably  only get better if I know Ulsan people.

I went to this spot last year with Griffin Stewart, who is now traveling in South America and I wish him all the best. We had a great time up there and I hope that it will be just as spectacular this time around. So if you are in the area, head on over soon and check it out.

Sony and Samsung

During my honeymoon we used a very inexpensive sony dsc-w510.  I must admit that it was a fun little camera to shoot with but I found myself going back to my iPhone whenever I didn’t want to bring my DSLR along. This was a strange thing because we all know that the cameras on the iPhones suck, so why would I choose that over the 12.1 megapixel camera that was almost the the same size?

Well at first I thought that it was because it was in fact a “cheap little camera” It took nice shots but it also felt like a toy. I also thought that the iPhone was more convenient and I used it out of habit.  The revelation came when I won a Samsung MV800 from the Korean Tourism Organization. I had voted on some of  popular blogs and won the draw!

I got the camera in the mail over the weekend and I really liked what I saw in the box. I turned it on and saw an amazing assortment of features and a whopping 16.2 megapixel sensor. It has a flip-out screen that was touch sensitive, funny face settings, frames, smart controls and a whole lot of other apps… er settings. That was when it hit me.

With the rise of camera phones and their apps, they are pushing the smaller point-and-shoots out of the way. With apps like Camera+, 100 cameras in 1, Photogene2, and the Best Camera you can bet that the only difference between your camera phone and the little point-and-shoot is the image quality.

They’ve also got it from other areas too. The MV800 also has HD video ability and that is something that I might take a stab at with some up coming new features to The Sajin… are you ready to see some on location shoots? However with cameras like the gopro that Steve Miller loves and the high end video capabilities of DSLRs now, why would you need something like a little point-and-shoot to do your filming?

The only reason would be if you are my wife and you haven’t quite made the transition to smart phones and you like to keep all of your pictures on your camera…. forever. That was the other thing about the MV-800 that I didn’t like was that for a camera that was released in September 2011, there was no feature to share the photos to facebook or anywhere. So again, the iPhone may have a crappier image quality but I can edit, add filters, and then tweet it, google+ it and put on facebook right from the phone.

In the age of instant photo-gratification, this was a shock. I was left downloading them on to my computer like my DSLR. Now, this is what I normally do, but for a camera packed with so many features, I thought for sure that this would have been something that could have been included. Especially being that the market for this camera is for people who probably don’t want to sit down at their computers and edit each photo in photoshop.

So what is the future for these little cameras? It looks grim to me. The market has moved on to expensive retro cameras like the Fuji X-series, Canon G-1X and other powerful prosumer cameras. People want the power and not the bulk and are willing to pay for it. Hence, prices for the point-and-shoots are dropping like flies.

While the price of the Samsung MV-800 is still high, you can pick a small point-and-shoot up for less than 100,000 won at any Lotte Mart or online shop. I would hazard to guess that in the years to come, these low-end cameras will disappear or be reintroduced in some retro form like the current and pricey items from Fuji.  With everyone having smart phones in their pockets it is not doubt that the cameras in them will get better and certainly put a nail in the coffin of the aging point-and-shoot camera.