before and after

Buffalo wings. Before and After. Quite tasty indeed!

 

new watermark

I've never really had a personal watermark for my photos...but, tonight I decided to make my own. I opened up photoshop and away I went. Here's what I came up with: simple and neat. What do you think?

 

new home

Sorry I haven't updated for a few days! Been busy with moving to a new apartment! Yay! Our old place had nice high ceilings and a big window looking out over the city from the 14th floor. BUT, it was like living in a shoe box.

Our new place is on the second floor, has a bedroom, living room, office room, window/porch area, spacious kitchen (as opposed to our kitchen-bathroom combo in the last place), a bathroom of course, AND, a new addition: we have a huge loft area; so we actually have  a place to store our stuff! Hurray!

We are very happy with the new place, although we're not fully moved in yet, there's still a lot of sorting to do and we're waiting for  some new furniture to come in.
I'll definitely be posting some pictures of it pretty soon...once it looks nice and cozy.

And, by the way, the reason for the move is because I got the new job working as a filmmaker for a very large publishing company here in Korea. I'm actually only the 6th foreigner they've ever hired, so there's gonna have to be a  bit of getting used to things. I'll share more about what I'm working on and what I get to do for my job once I get the go-ahead from the people upstairs :)  but let me assure you, it's really freaking rad!

b&w traditional wedding

This is a set of pictures I took quite a while ago with my minolta. I found them while sifting through my computer. An international couple got married in the ultra traditional Korean way and so I had the opportunity to take a few pictures. In the last picture she was actually inside a little booth carriage that 4 guys carried her around in, it was pretty nifty. 

International World Peace Festival

On Sunday September 16, Mannam took part, along with many other sponsors, in hosting the World Peace Festival, held in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, Korea. The stadium's seating capacity is about 70,000. It was completely filled, even standing room, a few thousand people had to stand outside and watch all the happenings on a big screen because they couldn't fit in (an estimated 200,000 people came and went throughout the day's events).

Luckily, our team was participating in the basketball tournament on the day and so we had full athlete access. The tournament was a single-elimination match, so if you lose one game you're out. Our team ended up winning all FOUR of our games (4-0) and won the GOLD MEDAL! It was pretty awesome!

The crowds were so loud and so active that we couldn't hear a thing...and during our games many other competitions and performances were going on. In fact, at one point I was shooting free throws on a foul and fireworks were going off! It was pretty amazing! I'm glad Jinny was able to come along and photograph us playing and capture the memories. 

Definitely a great day full of amazing performances and fun times. I got to meet many people from various countries, cultures, and religions...and got to see first hand what it could be like if we could achieve world peace some day.

:)

Fighting for the rebound.

Intense defensive positions.

Making things happen.

Photographers getting in on our huddle. 

The Gold Medalists

Minolta Magic

Here're a few more pictures from my last film role. A delicious hamburger from Burgerholic (burger, fries, drink for 5,900 won (about $6)), a view outside a bus window, my watch (the longest I've ever kept a watch without losing/breaking it - 1.5 years!), escalator man, and two moving bus photos (day vs. night).

Goodbye Teaching

Yesterday was my last day of teaching English. I now move on to bigger and better things. Which, I  will hopefully be updating you on very soon^^ Below are some pictures I took with my Minolta in my final week. It was a nice way to end things.

Hanna, co-English teacher. 

 Morgan, co-English teacher.

It was time...

So, I gave in, and got another tattoo. I headed down to Tattoo Korea (probly the best/cleanest/most trustworthy tattoo shop in Korea) and I got it done. Of course when you get a tattoo you want to get something that means a lot to you. I had been thinking about this one for some time and I finally decided (with the approval of my wife) to get it done. One of the most influential and meaningful things I have come across in the Bible and in my walk of faith has been the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6. Jesus says, "THIS then is how you should pray." Many people have it memorized because, well, they had to as a child, it was part of church, but how many people actually know what it MEANS? There's so much meaning in it! But instead of giving you a freebie and explaining it all out here, I recommend you take a look at it for yourself, go verse by verse, seeking understanding. This prayer is far shorter than any pastor in the world today prays, and it was spoken by Jesus Christ as THE example of how to pray and what to pray for.  Let's learn to pray for what is IMPORTANT, for things that actually MATTER to God.

*Jinny used my film camera and snapped these pictures.

Fall

Fall has FINNALY made its way here! Hurray! I can finally wear jeans! No more humidity! Here's a picture I took while waiting for the bus. The leaves are collecting in the gutters.

More from Minolta

It was only 8am in the morning, but the sun was SUPER bright and hot. Lydia on the second picture was barely able to keep her eyes open for me. You can see how the sun is making her shadow long and dark. But, it was better than rain!

Weekend with a Minolta

Had a pretty busy weekend. Went to a Charity 5k/10k race for the Korean Heart Foundation. There was a good showing. It was hosted jointly by the Mannam International Running Club and the Seoul Flyers Running Club. I decided to shoot with only film and put my Minolta X-300 to use. I love the way film looks! And I also love the anticipation of waiting for it to be developed. I didn't edit any of the below pictures, just stuck them up here. Jinny and I also went to a Korean wedding, so we got all dressed up...and I snapped that picture of Jinny PRE-MAKEUP! She's gorgeous isn't she?

Adjushi (아저씨)

아저씨 pronounced "aw - djuh - she" is a Korean word used to describe the "middle-aged man" the "sir" or  the "uncle." When you hear this word there are automatic connotations associated with it... connotations which reflect upon the said person's behavior, speech, attitude, and dress; things that can only truly be understood if you have spent a measurable amount of time in Korea. Now, I'm not one to stereotype or label...but this is pretty spot on for MOST Korean adjushis.

Below is a classic adjushi example. This is the disaster zone left behind by a herd of them at a wedding...and this was no crazy party wedding...this is what occurred within 30 minutes of them sitting down, eating, and leaving. These days it has just become something that makes one smile...which is why I'm blogging about it today...a little bit of a language/cultural lesson doesn't hurt anyone! I hope you can visit Korea someday and see the wrath of the adjushis firsthand; it's something you don't wanna miss.

"What If?" stills

Some still shots from my film "What If?" for the World Peace Initiative. 

These are my favorite shots, compositionally, from the film.

check out: theworldpeaceinitiative.org