Archive for the ‘Korea and Culture’ Category
The picture really does not have that much to do with studying Korean except this is the new background for my twitter page which has been my new way to study Korean. I found TWIPL which is a Korean application to post photos on Twitter. I commented on a couple of photos in Korean and exchanged a couple messages with Korean Twitter users. I also started posting a few photos on TWIPL myself. For the last few days a few of my posts have been commented on by Korean speakers and I have been trying to post as much as I can in Korean. I have been pretty proud of the amount of their replies that I understand but still am having to use my dictionary, Google translator and JJ way too much for answering messages in Korean. I have started back with my flash card system and already have about 100 new words to learn. I also am back using the Seogang Series of text books. I am following about 10 Koreans on Twitter and hopefully will begin to understand more and more of their messages without assistance.
Deer Cam
I put out a wildlife camera a few days ago. The first few nights the camera was set up away from the house in the middle of the woods. We had no luck so my grandfather and I bought some corn and moved the camera closer to the house. We had seen some deer tracks and hoped for the best. We did get some photos but are having some problems with the flash firing way too early or way too late. We had given thought to opening the machine and attempting to fix it but decided that it would be way too advanced for us to do it. I will post more over our results tomorrow! I will say that all of our corn was gone and today I had to feed them twice.
Deer Camera with corn as bait
You can see the quality is very low...Not even a megapixel
These two does ate all my corn.
Tags: Deer Camera, Korean Twitter, Studying Korean with twitter, TWIPL, wildlife cam
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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JJ and I just got back from a great dinner with our friend Billie from Korea. Billie was hired to teach at my school and he didn’t work with us long till we realized that he knew my grandparents. We saw him for the first time since he left Korea. We went out to a local sports bar and really enjoyed retelling stories from Korea.
JJ and I left from our dinner with Billie and drove to Paris, Tennessee. We had to drive to Paris because we are currently living in a dry county, so that means no alcohol sales at all. I was thrilled to find Fat Tire which I love! I fell in love with this beer when I was working at Yellowstone 9 years ago and have had the hardest time finding it. They are not allowed to sell it in Mississippi because of the alcohol level. Doh~!
Today’s photos are just a few random images from around the house here in New Concord, Kentucky.
Sheeba posing in the front of the christmas tree
JJ and Poppa!
JJ's Kentucky Office
Gotta have sweet tea with a southern meal!
This guy was watching us when I woke up on Sunday!
Closeup of our peeping hawk.
Tags: Hawk, New Concord Kentucky, sweet tea
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography, Travel |
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We 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.
Tags: cosplay Korea, Hwaseong, Suwon Festival Parade
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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This 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.
Tags: Foreigners dressed as Koreans, Korea, Parade, Suwon Festival
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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Derek 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.
Tags: Bellydancers, Hwaseong, Korea, Photography, Suwon Festival, 화성행궁
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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I 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.
Tags: Civil Service Exam Suwon, Hwaseong, Suwon Festival, 화성행궁
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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I 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
Tags: Korean Culture, Photography, photoshop actions, Suwon Festival, Suwon Hwaseong, 화성행궁
Posted in Korea and Culture, Photography |
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I attended this festival a few months ago in Seoul. I have started to go back and reprocess some of the images. I am trying some of the new actions for Photoshop that I downloaded recently. I actually have a hard-drive full of images that I want to go back and reprocess. This festival is held every couple of months and is usally held at the A.T. Center near Gangnam. There are always tons of photographers and a little crowded, but it is still a good time.
Tags: anime, cosplay, photoshop actions, Seoul Korea
Posted in Korea and Culture |
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