Time and Space (or, Korea, Day .5)
I have no idea what time it is. Well, that's not entirely true, but my body sure doesn't. I've slept only about 6 hours in the last 40-ish hours. The stretch of 27 hours was the hardest, but not as hard as I would have imagined. Surprisingly, the 15 hours on the plane went by much faster than I expected. Being on 747 helped that. So much less affected by turbulence and so much more room to walk around with a very confused baby. She was confused by the fact that the airline decided to wake up the entire planefull of passengers 4 hours before the end of the flight just to serve them food (this wouldn't have been so bad if they then didn't turn all the lights off again after service). H and K are asleep now while I spin my wheels yet again.
So far I've learned very little about Korea. It's not at all what I imagined it would look like. I've set a goal for myself to do things in my time here. One is to try to photograph what I see here in a way that communicates that to someone else who might come here. And in a way that is here and now. I want to show what it is in 2009. This is always a dicey prospect. Photos tell a story and the containment of the frame dictates what information gets passed along. You simply can't get in all the peripheral context that you'd like. Still, I don't want my photos to just show...well I'm not sure. I don't want them exclusionary to the point of not telling the story. That should always be the goal, but I think it's somehow heightened when you are experiencing something completely unknown. I also don't want to reproduce what I see in the travel books. I've not once felt that I experience anything by reading them before I go somewhere. Is it because they are out of date soon, or is it just impossible to condense something so big?
The second thing I want to do is photograph more people. This is related to issue one. I already had several chances this morning, and I blew it. First rule is you have to have the camera out of the bag if you are going to successfully catch people pics. Take too long to arrange the gear and it's gone. Big fail on me. (I'm not going to punish myself for leaving the gear at the hotel last night though when I had to take K on a walk to get her to go to sleep. I was too delirious to take photos even though I really wanted to.) I also find myself rankled by the fact that if I were to do anything with pictures of people, I'd need to get releases on them. It's not always possible and I've never done it before with someone I don't know. This is one of the few reasons I'd like to have a DSLR along with me. It's nice to share what you've got in the moment. And I don't know how to say "I only shoot film. If you give my your name and address, I'd happily send you a print." in Korean.
Here's what I have learned. There is a unique way of using underground space here. I think this is true in some other Asian countries, but I can't say that for certain. Basically, there's a second world down under the street. This will need to be explored further. The other thing I expected: the juxtaposition between old and new is intense. More verification is needed, but I already see it in the back alley streets just in the few blocks around the hotel. Here too is another world away from the main thoroughfares (and probably the better food too).
Okay, battery is going to die soon. Only 8 minutes left, which is really like 4 with my battery. Still have to go give some trivial update on facebook.
So far I've learned very little about Korea. It's not at all what I imagined it would look like. I've set a goal for myself to do things in my time here. One is to try to photograph what I see here in a way that communicates that to someone else who might come here. And in a way that is here and now. I want to show what it is in 2009. This is always a dicey prospect. Photos tell a story and the containment of the frame dictates what information gets passed along. You simply can't get in all the peripheral context that you'd like. Still, I don't want my photos to just show...well I'm not sure. I don't want them exclusionary to the point of not telling the story. That should always be the goal, but I think it's somehow heightened when you are experiencing something completely unknown. I also don't want to reproduce what I see in the travel books. I've not once felt that I experience anything by reading them before I go somewhere. Is it because they are out of date soon, or is it just impossible to condense something so big?
The second thing I want to do is photograph more people. This is related to issue one. I already had several chances this morning, and I blew it. First rule is you have to have the camera out of the bag if you are going to successfully catch people pics. Take too long to arrange the gear and it's gone. Big fail on me. (I'm not going to punish myself for leaving the gear at the hotel last night though when I had to take K on a walk to get her to go to sleep. I was too delirious to take photos even though I really wanted to.) I also find myself rankled by the fact that if I were to do anything with pictures of people, I'd need to get releases on them. It's not always possible and I've never done it before with someone I don't know. This is one of the few reasons I'd like to have a DSLR along with me. It's nice to share what you've got in the moment. And I don't know how to say "I only shoot film. If you give my your name and address, I'd happily send you a print." in Korean.
Here's what I have learned. There is a unique way of using underground space here. I think this is true in some other Asian countries, but I can't say that for certain. Basically, there's a second world down under the street. This will need to be explored further. The other thing I expected: the juxtaposition between old and new is intense. More verification is needed, but I already see it in the back alley streets just in the few blocks around the hotel. Here too is another world away from the main thoroughfares (and probably the better food too).
Okay, battery is going to die soon. Only 8 minutes left, which is really like 4 with my battery. Still have to go give some trivial update on facebook.
Pusan, the only Korean city of any size I visited, had the same underground bit. I'm very jealous and excited for you. I never caught how long you and K are going to be there, and how long H is, if different. I'd like to know how the whole thing works too with the project she's on. Will you get out into the countryside at all? That's where I spent most of my time. It's a really fascinating place.
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We are here for seven weeks in all. For six of them, H will be working on the SK production of Spring Awakening. Then we've got a week to do whatever we want. I decided to wait to figure that part out until we got here. Depending on how much time off H has will determine whether we stay in Seoul or not for that final week. I suspect we'll try to get out of the city for at least a few days though.
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I think I'd like to see those kinds of photos. What do you think about captioning photos, Jeffrey? You know, like having a paragraph or two to talk about what you're photographing. I imagine you'd want the photo to stand on its own, but being someone who loves words, I tend to really like when I'm reading a book or at a show and there's some kind of text giving me a little context. (This is, I believe, related to my deep and abiding love of photographs and paintings that include words right in the photograph or painting. I'm always like, "Hey! A word! I get that!")
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I don't caption anything. I like descriptions too, but I get distracted by them. Whenever I'm in a museum, try as I might, I almost always look at the little card next to the object in question first before looking at the object. I don't like that. Then again, it's nice to know something about it.
Still one does need some kind of title or identifier. I started using my own system of serial numbers a few years ago and have left it at that. If at some point in the future people are really interested enough in my photos to want an explanation, then I'll give one in the published book form.
I find most titles trend towards the pretentious (just look around on flickr for some REALLY bad ones). Titles always make me think of those awful posters that have someone surfing or some landscape with a caption like "Endurance" or "Inspiration." Usually it's just some attractive word next to a random, barely related photo.
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