Jumunjin is an interesting town to visit for photography. There’s the sea, the sandy and rocky beaches, the fish markets (if you can stand the sight of fish, which I can’t), dilapidated neighbourhoods, and a hill neighbourhood that has some interesting views. On a trip last October I stuck mostly to the road that runs along the shore.
To get to the shore from the bus stop, I crossed the hill neighbourhood and made this photo on the way. I was attracted by the odd green bricks and the flower pots perched on top of the wall. Something was attached to the wall before this mail box because there is a paintless patch above it. This mailbox is rusting, so it must have been quite a while ago. Or maybe things rust quickly in the salt air.
Drying fish above drying persimmons. Drying fish are a permanent part of the landscape but the drying fruit only happens in the autumn.
The sign on the far right says, “No Swimming Sign” at top. Below that is a warning about not swimming because it’s not a ‘water play’ area. The smaller sign next to it says it’s illegal to catch or harvest various kinds of sea life. Mostly things that scuba divers like to carry away. The breeze bloack structure is/was a military watch post, though it doesn’t seem to be in use. I looked around for No Photography signs before I made this photo but I didn’t see any. The pole to the left of the watch post gives the name of the walking path, the next tourist destination, and the coordinates of this spot. To the left of the pole is a car parked illegally on the sidewalk.
While waiting for the bus home I noticed this phone booth and the sign behind it. The sign is mostly faded now. The red letters say ‘report’. The full sign says, “If in doubt, look again. If it looks suspicious, report it.” Possibly they mean crime, but it could also mean North Korean spies or infiltrators.
After Thought
The photos in this post were made using my new Fujifilm X-T3. It’s a very complicated camera, and out of the box there is so much information in the viewfinder. A histogram, artificial horizon, film simulation, battery level, photos remaining, metering mode, and so on, and so on, and so on. It’s quite cluttered. It’s a bit of a shock for someone used to a basic film camera like the Zeiss Ikon rangefinder or even a Nikon SLR or DSLR. All that information is very distracting so I decided to reduce the complexity of my new digital camera to the simplicity of an older camera.
The first thing I did was to turn off all indicators in the display except shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and exposure compensation. I turned on highlight overeposure blinkies because it’s extremely useful and takes up no room in the display. And that’s it. That’s everything I need to make a photograph. To the function buttons on the camera body I assigned frame ratio (3:2, 16:9, 1:1), artifical horizon, film simulation, AF mode, Grain Effect (On for colour, Off for the Acros simulation which seems to have grain already built in), and Face/Eye Detection. That’s it. I rarely use the function buttons because I stick to Classic Chrome and Acros for my film simulations. Sometimes I change the frame ratio to suit my mood or the subject. Other things I mostly leave alone.
After about a month or so of using this camera, I finally have it simplified enough to really enjoy it. I don’t have to think about the camera anymore when I’m making photos. It’s a great camera with great colours and beautiful black and white, and I’m glad I shelled out a month’s salary to get it.