Seoul Through the Lens Day 2: Namdaemun Market

On Tuesday we spent the morning in the computer lab learning how to edit photos before a second lesson on composition.  Today's assignment was to look for lines, color, and texture on our outing to Namdaemun Market.  This is one of those places in Seoul where you can find, quite literally, almost anything.  Food, clothes, shoes, dishes, flowers, camera equipment...you name it, it can probably be found at Namdaemun.  The trick is knowing WHERE to find things in this giant, often crowded market.  We took the bus to the market and expressed the importance of sticking together in groups to the students and off they went for an hour and a half of shooting.   

Alice and I hit the photography section to pick up a tripod for Thursday's night photography session before making our way into the mayhem.  We knew that we'd be heading for the flower market to get some good flora photos (and because it is just a beautiful place to pass the time).  Along the way we found one of our little sheep wandering about, lost from her group and a bit clueless as to what she should do!  This is when my mothering instincts tend to kick in and within a few minutes we had reunited her with her classmates and led the group of girls to the flower market too!  Win-win!  I had heard that last year's students had a bit of trouble with the elderly vendors not wanting photos taken of them or the merchandise so I made nametags for the kids and on the back had something translated into Korean like: "Hello.  I am a student learning photography.  May I take a photo of you?"  Some kids had success using these, others not so much.  Perhaps I should have used my tag.  I stopped to take a photo of some brightly colored towels on a cart and the adjuma manning the cart obviously didn't approve as she made a fist and whacked me quite hard on the arm!  Lesson learned!  At 1:00 we all gathered (which was a bit of an ordeal since the meeting spot wasn't as clear as we thought so half ended up in one spot and half in another) and the only truly lost person happened to be one of the teachers...but he showed up 15 minutes later.  We walked a short distance to Myeongdong, a hopping, happening neighborhood with lots of shopping, coffee shops, and restaurants (and a favorite area of the students) where we split up to have lunch and called it a day.  Here are my edited shots from the day at Namdaemun Market:

Some sort of dried fish?

And in black and white...I liked the crinkly texture.

The market signs edited in color with faded buildings.

A gritty looking photo.  This gives you a good idea of the market's true character. and the number of people who frequent this place!

Pretties from the flower market!

More of those twisting shots...an experiment really.

Up close shot of what I call a "brain flower".

A cabbage flower from the flower market.

These flowers were so bright that I reduced the saturation and this is what I got!

Lilies!

An interesting arrangement of lines and color.

Just playing around...

Fun little ceramic figures.

I loved these little jugs.

Shoes with fun faces!

Colorful shoes!