A Walk in the Hills

I’ve probably mentioned the hills and paths that surround Stone Island Valley behind my apartment complex. It’s not much of a valley and dale might be a better word to describe it. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a nice place to take a walk because most people take their walks on the concrete road that goes up the dale and fewer people go up into the hills to stroll amongst the trees.

The hilltop path as it dips between two hills.

Not only are there fewer walkers on the path, but at most points you can’t see any houses or roads. I almost said you can’t see any signs of civilisation, but this would be false because the hills are full of grave markers and tombs.

I don’t know if these flower pots were blown over by the wind or if they were casually tossed there by someone.

The walking path passes by many graves and grave markers like these.

On my walk this day, I saw only one person and he was quite a distance away. He must have turned off somewhere, because he never caught up to me even though I frequently stopped to make photos.

In addition to a human, I saw and heard birds the whole time I was walking and as I was coming down off the hill near the end of my walk I was surprised by a deer who leapt out of some tall grass and ran for the hills. It was at the bottom of that path where I cam across a photogenic tree that I want to visit again in different kinds of weather. This might make an attractive colour photograph in late spring.

An interesting tree on a less-travelled path coming down off the hills.

I noticed today that WordPress automatically includes the captions I write in Lightroom to the bottom of each photo. This might be a new feature as it’s never happened before. Or perhaps I deleted metadata in the past when saving for the web. Anyway, it’s a convenience. I wish it would read the keywords, though. That’s what takes up the time.

A day at the beach

You may notice a distinct lack of beach in these photographs. I am usually more interested in the things you find around the beach rather than the beach itself. I don’t think I went out to Anmok Beach with any photographic goal in mind, which is why there’s no connection between these two photos. Other than the fact they are both black and white.

This is the top section of a statue built from metal strips. The bottom is a white coffee cup and stacked on top of that are three giant coffee beans. The statue is about twice my height. There is a steady stream of tourists who come to stand in front of it for pictures.

This is a photo Edward Weston might have done if he were much less talented. I like it. I can’t find any glaring errors in composition and the twisted branches are attractive. Bystanders kept looking from me to the tree while I was making this, trying to figure out what I might be photographing.

Downtown, Midmorning

I don’t remember why I was downtown in the middle of a Monday morning, but I suspect I was heading to the supermarket and dallied to make a few photos.
It was a bright morning with no clouds around so contrast was quite high. Since everything was so bright and shiny, I decided to set the camera to vivid mode and get some strong colours.

Power, Internet, and cable lines are all buried on Gangneung’s main streets and tourist areas, but it will probably take some years before that sort of work gets done on side streets. With the clutter of shop signs, it probably won’t look much neater even after the poles are gone.

Although brightly coloured, this sign is quite simple and neat against the brick wall.

A compose and wait photo. It took a few tries to adjust the exposure so that the sunlight on the ground was very bright but not overblown and the shadows were dark but not gone to black. I made about four photos of this woman and then chose the one that showed both her hand and her feet in stride.

All these were made on my Nikon D810 and 50mm 1.8G lens.

Annoyed

We’re having renovations done in the house and the computer was buried under sheets of plastic for a few days. Thus, no updates here. Just a little bit left to do with the living room wall and then wait for the paint and plaster smell to disappear.

In the meantime, here’s the cat looking unhappy. As he’s been for the past week. The photo was actually taken quite a while before the work started, when his only annoyance was me sticking a camera in his face.

Black and White and Colour

The rain stopped early in the morning of September 12th, so I climbed across my bike and went for a ride as far as Seongsan. It was the usual route through Geumsan and then to the 7-11 at the end of town for a tin of mocha coffee and a little rest. I set the camera for black and white, but it turned out that colour was better for some of the photos I made that morning.

Black and white was the better choice for the first photo because the scene was more or less monochrome anyway. I thought there was a building going up behind these fences and gate, but the sign says it’s an assembly area. Whatever that means. Over the top of the fence I could see some large metal structures that looked like they might be parts of a bridge or another large infrastructure project.

I made the second photo because I liked the deep green of the plant and the slightly orange-ish brown of the picnic table. I usually make a couple of photos of the picnic tables and flower pots when I stop for my tin of coffee. The owner probably thinks I’m mad. But maybe doesn’t care as long as he makes 900 Won every time I drop by.

Parking

Rice Paddy Irrigation Canal

Rice Paddy and Irrigation Canal, Geumsan

One of my early morning bicycle routes takes me through the rice paddies and fields of Geumsan Village. At 6:30 the light is soft and the absence of cars makes the ride peaceful. Autumn is an especially nice time to be out in the countryside because of the beautiful golden rice fields. “Geumsan” means “Golden Mountain”, but I think the village could well have been named “Golden Fields”.

Harvest time is coming soon and the fields will be brown and lifeless afterwards. Korea has very little snow so the landscape is bleak during all the winter months. I might switch to black and white photography for my morning rides when the cold weather begins because the dull colours of the hills and fields will add nothing to my photographs.