Seoul Through the Lens Days 3, 4, & 5: Gyeongbok Palace, Night Photography, and We're Finished!

Well, I had the best of intentions of posting my photos daily, but I'll be honest, all of that running around the city with a camera and (shep)herding students wore me out!  So, here I am on Saturday night recapping the rest of my week.  I have to thank God for the incredible weather we continued to have!  Wednesday was dreary, but the rain held off until the end of our day so we could thoroughly enjoy our outing to Gyeongbok Palace.  After a morning of editing pictures we set out on the bus and made our way to the giant palace grounds.  For the most part, everyone stuck together.  I should note that "sticking together" means that everyone is spread out over about the length of a city block or so.  Herding teenagers is like herding cats--heaven help them, they just "drift" every which way!  I love that the kids had there cameras at the ready all the time--on the bus, on the street...they were always snapping photos, which is probably why they got many more interesting shots than I did.  

Inside the palace we simply made the rounds of the grounds, and there certainly is a lot of ground to cover.  I think we shot photos for the better part of two hours before meeting again to go have lunch and head over to the Bukchon Hanok village in Samcheongdong, which is just a short walk from the palace.  The kids really took Joel's advice when he told them to try new angles.  Some were on their stomachs on the ground and one kid captured me in an awkward position up against a post trying to shoot straight up and capture a ring fixture while blurring the ceiling (note: I was just copycatting our excellent teacher and you'll see the cool photo below).  When we had time to edit the palace photos I was a bit bummed that the sky was an icky gray color, but such is life so I tried some different editing effects just to see what would happen and got some cool photos.  After lunch we spent about half an hour in the hanok village.  Hanoks are old Korean style houses and in Bukchon, many have been restored to their former glory.  There are old alleyways, cool roof lines, and other interesting things to take photos of.  I tried to look for patterns, shapes, colors, and textures as I walked.  When the rain arrived we called it a day!  Here are my palace and hanok village pictures from Wednesday:

The leaves in Seoul are just changing!

Autumn palace gate

Here's that shot I had to get into an awkward position for--I think it was worth it! 

Looking up sometimes provides the best view!

More door fixtures:)

Two identical shots, just edited differently...which one do you like better?  A?

Or B?

Same thing again...different editing!  Editing A...

...and Editing B.

Walls really aren't that interesting but they sure test whether you can hold the camera straight!

I love this little pagoda!

It's so pretty and fun to shoot from different angles!

More Korean architecture.

A side alley in the hanok village.

Lovely hanok doors and red berries!

Two interesting roof lines meeting.

Roses growing up to the roof.

Peeling paint on an abandoned door.

On Thursday we had a late start since we were waiting for darkness to fall before we could work our photography magic.  The lesson focused around night photography and we were going up to Namsan Tower to shoot the city lights.  Seoul is a beautiful city at night and we were hoping to capture it!  The great news was that the rains from the day before had cleared away the usual pollution and it was a perfectly clear, and warm day!  Around 4:30pm we headed out to Myeongdong to catch the cable car up to Namsan Tower.  It was a bit more crowded than expected, but we still had plenty of time to have dinner and take photos in the dark!  I tried out my new tripod, an absolute essential for night photography since we were leaving our shutters open for 30 seconds to several minutes to capture as much light as possible and any hand shaking would cause blurry photos.  For the most part, the tripod worked like a champ, but it is going to take a lot more practice to get good at taking night shots.  It takes a lot of patience to set everything up perfectly and get the camera focused right before taking the photo.  I wish I had managed to capture the amazing light show that took place on the side of the tower, but alas, I was too busy taking photos!  After taking a bunch of city shots, I tried out light painting with the students.  Essentially what you do is hold the shutter of the camera open and draw in front of the camera with a light source.  It is so much fun!  I tried writing my name and although it turned out crazy and really blurry, the photo is still cute.  Most of the kids were having such a great time that they didn't mind the cold and stayed out later than we did!  Since this was my first try with night photography, I didn't get many great photos but it was a fun technique to learn and something I'll certainly practice more now that I have my own tripod!  Here's the best of Thursday:

Look at all of those lights!

The giant spaceship is Namsan Tower from below!

The city with a little sliver of a moon.

Me attempting to write my name with light painting!  Can you see me in the photo?

Up close city shot!

A bit out of focus, but this is all of Namsan Tower!

We ended the week with a trip to the frame shop in Hongdae so each student could frame their best photograph and we created photo cards to sell for charity which showcase the students' amazing photos!  Even though I'm exhausted, it was a great week and I hope the students had fun and learned a lot--I know I certainly did!