street photography korea

2019: Roll 4: Hanok Village

February 18, 2019February 18, 2019Posted in Blog, film, jtinseoul, Leica, neverland, UncategorizedTagged film photography korea, hanbok, hanok village, hp5 3200, Ilford Film, jeonju, Jtinseoul, leica film photography, leica korea, leica mp, street photography korea, travel photography korea2 Comments

Jeonju, South Korea. Leica MP, 40mm Summicron. HP5 @3200.

Roll 4. It was a wild ride, this one.

Well, kinda.

My wife, her friend, and I decided to go to Jeonju’s Hanook Village to shoot a video and take some photos. My wife’s friend has basically become my videographer. She’s been great. If I were a little less lazy about the editing part we’d be golden.

The day started off rough with my wife breaking her traditional shoes. Considering how much they were I think it should be labeled a national tragedy.

As per usual, after the shoe crisis was resolved we headed straight to a coffee shop. Starbucks, in this case. I’d gotten a free meal there from one of my Leica Akadamie students. Not sure what happened on the photo above. The flare seems to have gotten her right in the eye. She hates that photo, ha.

Hanook Village in Jeonju has become a tourist hotbed in the past couple of years. Every person there is walking around in a rented Korean tradition hanbok and a selfie stick.

I should have mounted my Leica to my newly acquired Gorillapod thing.

To fit in.

After the coffee we escaped the tourist nightmare to a high point (on top of an arcade) that my wife had read about. It was definitely a big improvement from the streets below.

As you might be able to guess, she hated the first one 😉 I say that, even though it was HER idea to make it horror movie-esque.

Jeonju, South Korea. Leica Sofort, Leica Colour Instax film.

So, one of the main points of the video was to shoot a little bit with this:

Before the pitchforks come out and you blast me for the fact that this is basically a Fuji camera in a nice dress hear me out:

While it might be very well that, it is nicer looking in my opinion haha. That goes a long way with whether or not I’ll pick up a camera in the first place. Full review on this camera coming soon 😉

She was happy, and I guess that is most important innit?

After the top of the arcade we made our way back into the busy streets.

Unless you’re Korean this photo probably won’t mean much to you. The chap in the photo is wearing a traditional Korean police officer’s uniform. The woman is wearing a traditional Korean prostitute’s dress. I thought this was an interesting choice for a leisurely Sunday stroll.

In my opinion, the best place to take photos in Hanook Maeul (Village) is the fort-like (someone may correct me) structure in the middle. It costs a couple of thousand won to get in and it is an interesting place to shoot.

It definitely feels a more “traditional” than the streets outside. It does suffer from some modern touches though like bathroom signs and “do not enter” signs. These signs once ruined one of my favourite photos.

While it is better than the outside streets, it is still touristy inside the gates of the fort. Lots of this kind of thing to contend with.

I basically spend my time here chasing people until they disappear from the cell phones and rubbish bins. These little girls were cute in their traditional garb.

He was pretty good too, aside from his Nike’s, ha. Standing guard quite well, I reckon. He didn’t move for the two or so minutes I was here waiting for my wife to finish gift shopping.

She really, really wanted me to get her shoes out of this photo. I blamed the 35mm frame lines on the MP using the 40mm lens. Confusing stuff, that.

She did take some photos herself as well. More on that during the Sofort review;)

On our first pass around the edge of the fort we saw this couple. I thought it was kinda neat that they decided to go 1920s with their look instead of 1600s. I later found out that this was due to the popularity of a Korean drama.

There wasn’t much to see after that couple. A whole lot of kids running around. One guy recognized me from Instagram though, my wife gets a kick out of that when it happens.

At the end of our loop I saw this couple again. I was still under the impression that this was their magic idea so I asked them to take a couple of portraits. I still think they look cool 😉

As always, there is only ever one bell of the ball in my eyes. My wife was a star on this dreary day in Jeonju. With her “real” modern hanbook she took photos with several people during the day. No rented garbage here.

The above was my favourite photo of the day.

I’m biased, of course.

Somewhere between Iksan and Jeonju, South Korea. Leica MP, 40mm Summicron.
HP5 @3200.

I forgot to include the photos I took before we left our house with Seonju in her hanbok:

Iksan, South Korea. Leica MP, 40mm Summicron. HP5 @3200.

Oh…

And the last photo of the roll as per usual:

The kitters 😉

2019: Roll 3

February 5, 2019February 5, 2019Posted in Blog, film, jtinseoul, Leica, neverland, VlogTagged 40mm summicron, Ilford HP5, ilford hp5 3200, Jtinseoul, leica mp, pushed film, street photography korea, travel photography korea8 Comments

Seoul, South Korea. January 2019. Ilford HP5 @3200.

Already finished with my third roll of the year. That, if you haven’t been following me, is quick fast for me. Normally I shoot two rolls or so a month if I’ve nothing special to shoot.

Why? Well, not super easy to answer that. I think the main reason is my excitement to be committed to shooting film again. This “commitment” came from a realization I had during my regular yearly photo purge.

Iksan, South Korea. January 2019. Ilford HP5 @3200.

I should start by explaining the idea of the yearly purge. Every year, during the last week of December I sit down and delete all the photos I took during that year aside from 40. I use the number 40 because to me it is basically like a roll of film. I throw out the other negatives (aside from those on either side of one of the forty) and get rid of the backups of digital files.

I should say this doesn’t really include stuff like iPhone photos or selfies with my wife. That being said, in the forty I choose I have generally become more nostalgic. I am more likely to choose one like the above of my wife playing a board game because of the way the photo makes ME feel.

Getting back to my commitment to film. When I went through last years photos I felt something different about the film photos. They felt more real. It is hipster dumbness, maybe, but I really loved the idea that the actual film negative was there with me at the moment I took the photo.

I also think that for me personally I have a great sense of discipline when I shoot film. I have a terrible habit of looking at my photos the first cafe I get to or break I have on the subway.

I am well aware that this is a mental problem. Something I could easily fix with some discipline. I think I shoot differently when I shoot film. I look for different things and ignore others. I don’t take photos for the sake of taking them.

Same old shit you’ve read on countless blogs or seen in countless YouTube videos I know. I apologize for that. It is just the truth though. It does really make me feel different.

That isn’t even to mention to fact that I have grown to love the developing part. I once hated it. I was too impatient. Now, I really enjoy it. It is the only time I let me cats into my darkroom. They come and play while I drink a glass of wine and listen to an audiobook or podcast.

What about the scanning? Well, scanning also has kind of become a bit of a routine for me. I have grown to enjoy it. I am in fact scanning these while I write this and inserting them while I do. By the time 6 finish I am ready to add the next group. It works for me.

You may be asking why they are bouncing between Seoul and Iksan so much. Basically I bounce between Seoul and Iksan a lot. I don’t take so many photos so you might see a couple days gap in between some of these where the camera was around my neck but I didn’t actually shoot anything.

Ah, to answer some questions:

What film do you use? I thought you used Tmax?

I also loved Tmax. It was like my first girlfriend in film. I never liked TriX at all. The grain was too much. The contrast was too much. The tones between black and white were too abrupt. Tmax was a lot better for me. The feeling was more nostalgic. More akin to my mind’s eye.

Now I shoot HP5. There are some simple reasons for this.. but the most important one is price. HP5 costs about 15% less a roll here than Tmax. The second reason I shoot HP5 is somehow I feel like Ilford cares more about us (film photographers). I could be wrong, but I do feel that. HP5 at 3200 still has a nice look for me. It is somewhere between Tmax and Trix. Sometimes the tones can be a bit abrupt, but not so much as Trix. Ugh, I hate Trix.

What developer do you use?

This I am more strict about than with film, strangely. Tmax developer is the only developer in my book. I don’t know about others and care not to know, ha.

Forgot the scan the above first time around. Not sure how that happened.

It’s a big holiday here in Korea. I think we are exhausted. Good to have a day to do nothing but develop some film and write a blog post. I’m counting down the minutes until 2:00PM when I think it seems late enough to have a beer.

What about this YouTube?

Coming soon 😉 I already made my first couple of videos and have them on my Instagram. Tomorrow I’m going to the nearby historic city of Jeonju with a videographer and her assistant. Also have my vlogging setup nearly complete. I received the 11-22mm lens from Canon for my M50 right before the holiday and it seems to make things a whole lot easier when filming myself. Smallish tripod also on the way.

Anyway, that is about it for this roll. Catch you all on the flip side 😉

Coming Up

January 28, 2019January 29, 2019Posted in Blog, jtinseoul, VlogTagged canon 14-45, canon m50, google pixel 3, jt white blog, jtinseoul blog, street photography blog korea, street photography korea, travel photography korea6 Comments

So today’s blog post is going to be something a little different. It’s my last Monday off for a while. I’d kinda gotten used to Monday being a vlogging / blogging day. Alas, looks like my Monday will soon be busy again.

For today, I didn’t really have enough of anything to post yet I wanted to post something anyway. I guess you could consider this a little bit of a what’s up next preview.

As you can probably tell from the above, I’m going pretty hard on the vlogging these days. I wouldn’t consider myself exactly good at it. I am basically trying to transfer what I do here into a video format. It’s coming along but not quite ready for prime time yet.

I bought the Canon M50 on recommendation from some “vloggers” that I knew and/or reached out to. Interestingly, it seemed the overwhelming choice for something “starting” out. I kinda cheaped out and only got the 14-45 kit lens with the body and a mic. I’d been trying to use an Olympus camera but after a couple of attempts at using it I realized quickly it wasn’t very easy to work with considering my limited video skill.

After just a couple of hours with the Canon I started to understand why it was so highly recommended. I’m not planning on shooting in 4K and I guess that is its biggest weakness. In 1080p the auto-focus in video is borderline incredible.

I filmed my first “test” video the night I received the camera and it was a simple packing of my bag for a trip to Seoul (video is on my IGTV if you’re interested). While it turned out to be way longer than I’d anticipated and I only had one camera angle I was happy with the workflow. I’m editing in the iPad LumaFusion app and it has been great for someone with limited editing experience.

Before I go too far I should say the video in question stemmed from the amount of comments I’d gotten on Instagram regarding my (new) bag, the Wotancraft Trooper XL. I’d long wanted to graduate from the backpack style bags I’d been using for years. I’ve tried so many things. This one, however, has been the one. The next post I make will be a review of this bag.

Spoiler: I highly recommend it. I fecking love it.

Aside from that I have several other things in the works. As per another Instagram request I’ve started working on a review of the M50 for stills. I think this is important as for a lot of people the M50 would be their only camera. I may not be qualified to judge its video prowess but I think I can comment a little on its merits as a stills camera. I plan on doing the review mostly with the kit lens and perhaps an adapted Leica lens for comparison.

Iksan Bus Terminal, Iksan South Korea. Canon M50, 14-45.

To be honest, so far I think it is quite a good camera. There are some things I don’t like mainly its horrible sounding shutter. I don’t mean it is loud, I don’t care much about that, but it just sounds so “ugly.” Otherwise, it has proven itself to be a pleasant little camera.

The other things I’m working on at the moment are reviews of the iPad (6th generation 2018), the Google Pixel 3 for photography, some medium format film stuff, and the launch of my next zine (Neverland Volume II.)

The Pixel 3 has quite honestly blown me away with its photo capabilities. I suppose you can wait for the full review but needless to say it is insane what it does with software.

Considering the above photo was shot in candlelight in a pitch black room at ISO 3000 something on a smartphone is basically impossible in my brain. She literally moved as I was shooting this and I thought “well, there goes that shot” and yet it turned out TACK sharp. Insanity.

Anyway, I digress. More to come! Hope you enjoyed my slightly frantic post about nothing. One thing I will say, I’m really enjoying posting frequently again. I hope I find a way to translate all this into videos soon. And for those of you who prefer to read, I will consider the posts as a kind of script for the videos so no need to consume both, haha.

Stay tuned!

2019: Roll Two

January 21, 2019Posted in Blog, film, Gear, jtinseoul, Leica, neverlandTagged 40mm summicron, film photography, Ilford HP5, ilford hp5 3200, Jtinseoul, leica camera, leica m4, pushed film, street photography korea, street photography seoul, travel photography korea4 Comments

Somewhere between Iksan and Seoul. January 2019.

It isn’t often I get through two rolls of film in a couple of weeks. Normally I shoot about two rolls a month.

Why am I shooting so much?

It’s complicated.

I guess the first reason is travel. I shoot a lot when I am going somewhere. I shoot photos in the same time that people read books or listen to music. I take photos to not be bored.

I end up with lots of boring photos like this. That said, I think the main reason I shot a lot in the last two weeks was the excitement for being back shooting film. I’d used the M10P for a while and hadn’t shot any film.

Lots of these photos too. They don’t always turn out well. Rarely do they in fact. That said, some of my favourite photos were taken through the window of a train or bus.

A long time ago in Canada I had my favourite lens stolen. Honestly, I change lenses a lot. People will say I have never stuck to anything. I used the 40mm Summicron exclusively for 4 years. I couldn’t afford anything else but I loves that lens. I recently got the chance to get another. I love this lens. Feels like coming home.

All the photos here are Ilford HP5 at 3200.

This is a boring roll, I apologize. They aren’t always interesting.

I do really love the next photo though:

Somewhere between Iksan and Seoul, January 2019. Ilford HP5 @ 3200.

This was early in the morning. The air quality has been terrible lately, so much so that it looks like fog. The field had just been plowed. One of my favourite photos in a long time. It was very much how I’d imagined it would be.

I’ve been doing this a lot lately too. Cat photos are boring as well I guess. I love my cats though. I think I would be perfectly happy for a roll to consist only of photos of them. In this photo, Spoko is sitting in her favourite spot in our living room under a Nicholas Dominic Talvola print. He named her, so it is fitting that she loves this spot.

Maybe the next roll will be more exciting. I have several trips planned in the next little while. Including one to Kyoto / Osaka. Looking forward to that.

That trip will be with team Leica Korea, haha. More on that in the weeks to come 😉

Other than that, I’m happy to say if you’re in Korea soon I’ll be opening an analogue photography class at the Leica Akadamie here. During the class I’ll cover all sorts of film related topics from the basics of loading film to developing and even perhaps some printing.

I just realized half of this roll is photos of trees.

No trees here. Sucks this photo. They were all looking at me a split second before. I was super bummed when I saw it.

This was second last photo of the roll. It is boring but I quite like it. Iksan feels like this to me. It feels like Iksan.

The last photo. It is usually of my wife or one of the cats. Wife wasn’t in the mood so Spoko stepped up.

That’s all for today.

Catch you next time 😉

-Josh.

Leica C-Lux First Impressions

January 19, 2019January 19, 2019Posted in Blog, Gear, jtinseoul, LeicaTagged compact camera, daido moriyama, jt white, Jtinseoul, jtinseoul compact camera, Leica C-lux, leica c-lux review, leica camera, leica review, seoul, street photography, street photography korea1 Comment

If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll probably know I’m a sucker for compact cameras. Many of you probably found me because of a compact camera of some sort. In fact, for my general street photography I have always preferred compact cameras. I haven’t used many lately, but the above generally holds true.

So let me get the disclaimers out of the way before I continue:

I work for the Leica Akademie here in Korea as organizer and head teacher.
I am well aware there is a cheaper Panasonic version of this camera. In my humble opinion (work bias aside) I think the extra warranty, resale value (the Leica versions hold their value much better whether you think this is justified or not) and subjectively better looks are well worth the price difference.

Okay, now that that is out of the way let us continue with my Leica C-Lux 2019 first impressions.

I think it is cute the handsome camera. I very much like the blue tones and leatherette grip. I also generally love a silver lens on a black body. Of course, the lens isn’t silver but the multifunction ring is. I quite dig it.

The camera itself has a bit of a weird lens for my normal tastes. It’s a 24-360 that is only f3.3 at the widest. I find the former a positive. First, as this will be a travel / video camera for me I appreciate the range more than I might on a dedicated street camera. Second, the f3.3 doesn’t make much of a difference to me as I wouldn’t buy a compact camera for “bokeh.” That said, bokeh can be had because of the zoom range if you don’t mind using your feet a bit.

As a street camera, it performs great. Even with the crazy zoom range there is little to no distortion or what happens to be there is well controlled with the software. I love the fact that Panasonic and Leica always include the ability to zoom their lenses in steps. I find 24 a little wide these days so I have the camera set to turn on at 28mm. It is very fast to turn on and shoot.

There are some convenience features I quite like as well. The camera uses a low powered bluetooth mode to send photos to my smartphone as I walk around shooting. This it makes quite easy to sit down and edit in a coffee shop when I need a break. All the photos here were edited in Snapseed. They might be a bit much for you, I just try to keep all my photos looking somewhat similar these days. This is as close as I can get to my film photos.

I included the normal version of the photo above for your reference. I like this photo. I asked the woman to look more into the light and then we got talking. She grew up very close to where I live now.

Another feature I love about the C-Lux is its ability to charge via USB. I can charge it on the go with my laptop or a battery bank. I really, really wish it were USB-C but I guess we are a ways off of that on cameras yet. Maybe next year.

I didn’t find myself using the zoom very much during the first day of shooting. I did take a portrait of my wife with it later at night that I am saving for the full review. Much like the need for a viewfinder I find the need for a prime lens when shooting street photography to be a bunch of hipster nonsense. The only actual reason I see for this is size. With a camera like this it matters very little.

One thing I won’t really talk about a lot until the main review is the flash. It is a bounce type flash that is similar to that on the RX100 series. Because of the zoom range the flash on the C-Lux is quite strong for its size. This is important if you want that Daido Moriyama high constrast blow out the highlights kinda look. I didn’t do much testing of this yet aside from a couple of shots around my house. Expect more in the review.

I think the reason I like compact cameras so much is they so perfectly match the “moment” of capture to me. The photos I take with a compact camera almost always seem to be closer to my mind’s eye. I don’t think this is exclusive to any particular compact camera just those cameras in general.

So, surely I am not saying you go and buy this camera. I will say it ticks all the boxes I want in a modern compact camera. It has a 1 inch sensor, viewfinder, strong flash, nice looks, touch screen(also in the menus) self contained lens cap, bluetooth, and usb charging. The video is a big bonus since I have started to do a lot more of that.

Anyway, that is all for my first impression of the Leica C-Lux. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Upcoming reviews include the C-lux, the Leica MP (film), the Wotancraft Trooper, and the Pixel 3.

Much love from Korea,

Josh.