JJ and I are sitting in a PC room in Dongtan. I just finished my last day at my school. We are all packed up and our moving truck picks us up at 10. I will be absent for another 10 days and then I have all kinds of updates planned. Last dinners and Paris!!!
Archive for October, 2009
Leaving
October 30, 2009Ryan’s Assignment
October 15, 2009My buddy Ryan was given an assignment from one of his teachers to create a marketing video. They get a higher score depending on how many hits their video gets. Check it out when you have the time!
Suwon Festival Parade Characters
October 15, 2009We finally made our way to the parade and it lasted a lot longer that I thought it would. The first part was more like a contemporary parade and then it concluded with a more cultural type of parade.
These pretty Korean girls were very popular with the crowd and probably the photographers as well
The rest of the photos are from the more cultural part of the parade. I took a bunch of photos and have already posted a few, but here are a few more.
This photographer was quite interested in getting a good shot of Derek and I. I would love to see what she came out with.
All in all it was a good day. I got to take a lot of photos and learned a lot.
Short Skirts, Horse Riders, and Foreign Students??
October 14, 2009This is the third part of my photos from the Suwon Festival. We moved on to the parade and set up near an alley. There were a ton of colorful characters in the parade. This was actually my first parade to attend in Korea, besides the cultural part of the parade it was not too different from a parade back home.
I really missed a lot of shots because of a slow shutter speed. I really need to get out of AV mode. I think that I also bumped my focusing distance on the 70-200 and got a few too many out of focus shots. Here are few of the better ones.
These girls were fairly popular with the crowd. haha Reminded me of when a cheerleader at the high school ,where I taught a few years ago, would play in the band at halftime.
I really don’t know if these guys were students studying in Korea or not. I joked that they could have been enticed to come to a parade and were tricked into being part of the show.
I gotta learn to vary my aperture, so that I can get a different depth of field. I have the same shot on all 3 of these guys.
Suwon Festival 2009| Performance Near the Gate
October 12, 2009Derek and I left the civil service exam and went to grab some lunch at a kimbap restaurant. After lunch we moved on to Holly’s coffee right in front of one of the gates. I really felt like I bugged the hell out of Derek, but he was a good sport and gave me some really good tips and recommendations for books on photography to read.
We noticed that they were beginning to have some type of performance in the middle of the street in front of the gate. We both started photographing it and I noticed that Derek had moved into the middle of street with a bunch of Korean photographers. I got up the nerve to join him and at one point was sitting on the ground with a bunch of other photographers having a blast. We stayed here until the police asked/told us to get out of the middle of the street. One of the many things that I learned with shooting with Derek was to be more brave. He was the one that first said we should shoot from the stage at the exam and he was the first to move into the street. I really need to stop worrying about what others think and just try to get in there and get the best shot. Saying all of that, there was one photographer that was pretty much set up behind the dancers. I have him in a ton of my shots. He had to know what he was doing. There was also a staff photographer that everyone had to shoot around. She had a press pass, so she had free reign.
I was going to clone the photographer that got into the background of a ton of my shots out, but decided to leave him there for posterity’s sake. We took a bunch of photos here and then moved back to the fortress to get ready for the parade.
Suwon Festival Civil Service Exam
October 11, 2009I have wanted to take photos of the civil service exam reenactment at the Suwon Festival for a long time. I was not disappointed. I hate that this was the first year that I attended the festival. There was a lot going on that day and when I arrived I spent some time photographing the guards that were getting ready for a processional. It was cool to see them while they were just hanging out, smoking, chatting and preparing their costumes.
The test takers were all business and were intent on finishing as soon as possible. There was a proctor that was walking around and checking out their work.
Derek and I shot from the stage until we were asked to leave. We then moved to the sides and shot for awhile.
This guy was watching the group of test takers. This shot didn’t quite come out like I wanted to. Having to change lens throughout the day was no fun either. I see why people go with two bodies.
More to come later. The parade was full of colorful characters and I got some good shots.
Suwon Festival Weekend
October 10, 2009I luckily was able to wake up for the Suwon festival. JJ and I stayed up late on Friday night drinking coffee and talking about Paris and our roadtrip. I have been looking forward to the festival for a month or so now and almost pulled an all nighter, so that I would be up to be able to take pictures of the civil service exam at the fortress at 10:30. I went to bed around 5 and woke up about 7:30. I think I ran off of adrenalin all day. I took the bus to Suwon and as soon as I arrived at the fortress I saw a familiar face. I realized that a member of the Flickr in Seoul group was waiting on the exam to start as well. I had seen Derek’s work before, but had never met him. He is a super nice guy and an awesome photographer. You can check out some of his photography here. This is the first time that I have really shot photos with some one who was really full of knowledge that they were willing to share. We ending up shooting together till about 4 when I was plan wore out. Derek, if you read this, I owe you lunch for all the knowledge today!
The festival was awesome and I will post more about it later. I just started processing the photos and look forward to trying out some new photoshop actions on them. Here are a couple of shots from the day.
Test Takers
Bellydancers at the Fortress
Mother of all Lists
October 5, 2009The move to Hattiesburg is going fairly smoothly so far. Maybe, I should change the name of the blog to Korea to Mississippi. We still have a long way to go before we are ready to move. We are sending most everything by regular postal service and it has been taking about 5-6 weeks for our packages to arrive.
This is more for me than anyone else, but we have been trying to figure out exactly what all we have to do in the next 4 weeks and have come up with the following.
- Send the rest of our possessions to Mississippi-about 10 boxes
- Schedule EMS pickup for some items that we will need in November in Mississippi.
- Help my mother with addresses for the invitations
- Book a hotel for New York
- Confirm Paris hotel reservation
- Figure out how in the world we are getting from New Orleans to Hattiesburg at midnight
- Get rid of our sofa/book case/chest of drawers/computer desks
- Donate books and movies to my school
- Donate clothes to the poor box
- Pick readings for our wedding
- Pick music for the wedding
- Pick food for the reception
- Apply for my pension refund
- Buy a French adapter for my camera battery recharger
- Buy some more CF cards
- Buy 1 more SD card
- Send more money home
- Get some US cash
- Get some Euro cash
- Make my last dental appointments
- Schedule dinner with my adult students
- Schedule dinner and drinks with some friends in Gangnam
- Buy some medical insurance for JJ and I to cover us before I start working
- Cancel water purifying machine contract
- Cancel internet/gas/electricity
- Send our computers to Mississippi
- Apply for JJ’s dispensation from the Bishop
- Get reimbursed for my airfare from my school
- Schedule a cleanout/give away party at my house
- Schedule a truck to take us to Ilsan to take some boxes to JJ’s sister’s house
- Introduce new teachers for my privates
- Buy gifts for family back home
- Order Mom and Gram’s Christmas presents
- Write speech for rehearsal dinner and translate into Korean
- Give Laura a list of all Korean food we need from LA
- Getting wedding announcement in the newspaper
- Get addresses to Sarah for party
- Make a rough itinerary for Paris
- Buy level 4 and 5 Songang Series
I gotta have a picture too right??
The number and order of boxes has changed as JJ as sent a ton of stuff, but this has been my hallway for the last few months.
