Why am I suddenly interested in film photography? I'm not quite sure.
Earlier this week, I read this essay by Nathan Jones, entitled "Why Film Matters".
I'll quote the author here:
"The essential nature of the digital image is that it is easy to make, ephemeral and disposable. Rational people generally regard things that have these qualities as having no value."
"The medium is the message. And the message of the digital image is that it is not worth anything. This is not a good starting point for anyone venturing seriously into photography."
"Think that this doesn't apply to you? Then ask yourself these questions: How many images have you deleted directly from your camera before even transferring them to your computer? Are all of your digital images backed-up? How much are you willing to pay for this back-up on a per images basis, or to transfer your digital images to print? Does the capacity of everyone everywhere to make limitless perfect copies of any one of your images raise or lower their value? Does your own capacity to make thousands of images essentially without cost make you a more or less careful photographer?"
Tonight, I went to a musical performance with a full orchestra and a mass choir. But I was constantly distracted by the sound of a DSLR shutter. This photographer was standing in the back of the auditorium with a tele lens, taking a picture every 5-10 seconds. During the quiet parts of the music, it was ridiculously distracting.
I was annoyed by how loud his camera was in a quiet room, but (as an amateur photographer) I was more annoyed by how many photos he was taking. I couldn't help but think of the essay I had just read. How valuable are those photos he just took? Is even HE going to care about them? If he emails the photos to every member of the choir, how much time will those people spend looking at the photos?
I find myself doing something on Flickr, but even more often on Facebook. I'll open a folder of 100 photos, and spend about 2 seconds looking at each of them. Wouldn't it be better, I find myself wondering, if that person had taken 5 good pictures instead of 100 mediocre pictures?
I think the digital photography medium creates a mindset in people: we think to ourselves, "Every second that I'm not taking a picture is a waste of this beautiful camera. And I don't have to worry about what's good, I'll figure that out when I'm sitting at home on the computer." That makes us lazy photographers who take 1,000 pictures in a day in the hopes that at least a few will be good.
I'm shooting with a Pentax K1000 these days. It's an all-manual 35mm film SLR. I think mine was made in Hong Kong about 1985. At the time, it was the "cheap", "student" model of Pentax cameras. I'm absolutely in love with this goofy camera.
I have noticed three interesting things about how people react to me.
I have noticed three interesting things about how people react to me.
1) Yes, a lot of people say, "Isn't it expensive? Why don't you just use a DSLR?" But a lot of people seem genuinely fascinated to see someone using a film camera. One of my friends told me, "Is that a film camera? It's charming!"
2) People who don't realize I'm shooting film always say, "Can I see that?" I hand them the camera, and they realize that it's not digital. What they wanted to see was the photo I just took, on a crappy 3 inch LCD screen. Why?
This is the instant feedback desire. We feed it without thinking about whether or not it's good for us. Smartphones, fucking iPads, the whole Internet rewards this reaction. "Bored? How about downloading a game, or looking at some news headlines?"
Have you ever been working hard all day, skipped lunch, been really, REALLY hungry, and then sat down to a nice dinner? How much better is that meal than a meal you eat when you're not really hungry? It's amazing.
I'm starting to feel that way about photography. I LIKE the fact that I can't see the photo I just took. I like the fact that it cost me money to take that picture. When I do see it, probably a few weeks from now, I'll be in a position to actually appreciate it for what it is, instead of just glancing at it for a moment.
This is the instant feedback desire. We feed it without thinking about whether or not it's good for us. Smartphones, fucking iPads, the whole Internet rewards this reaction. "Bored? How about downloading a game, or looking at some news headlines?"
Have you ever been working hard all day, skipped lunch, been really, REALLY hungry, and then sat down to a nice dinner? How much better is that meal than a meal you eat when you're not really hungry? It's amazing.
I'm starting to feel that way about photography. I LIKE the fact that I can't see the photo I just took. I like the fact that it cost me money to take that picture. When I do see it, probably a few weeks from now, I'll be in a position to actually appreciate it for what it is, instead of just glancing at it for a moment.
3) People are often annoyed by the fact that it takes me about 5 seconds to select an aperture, select a shutter speed, manually focus, frame the shot, hold the camera steady, and shoot. Again, it's like we think we should just take 10 photos and see which one looks good, instead of taking one photo that you KNOW will be good.
The Korean election, as explained by 6th graders
EDIT: The election was on December 19. Park Geun-hye won in a very close race.
December 13, 2012
The election according to sixth graders:
"Grandmothers and Grandfathers most like Park Geun-hye. Park Geun-hye's father developed South Korea.
My mother likes Moon Jae-in, because his surname is Moon. My mother's surname is Moon!
Roh Mu Hyun died. His died is mystery. Guess is, alone died… suicide. He hometown went, died.
Park Guen-hye is government like. Moon Jae-in like person, and for person.
Japanese Imperialism ended. So North Korea is start fighting, so we fight. North Korea, China help. South Korea, USA help. China fighting people many. 38 line, temporary war fighting suspended, not finished.
Tong-il, Unification. On reunification: I don't like it. North Korea is very poor, so South Korea must pay for North Korea. Many money spend.
Our country is Democracy, but North Korea is Communist.
Me: Will you vote in the election?
No. We are not vote, because student. 19 years up vote. 20 years old.
Me: Do you have to go to school?
School? No, because Red Day. Korean Day is now Red Day.
Teacher, if you Korean, you vote who?
Me: Probably Moon Jae-in.
My new camera
I got a camera last week. It's a Holga, which is a popular "toy camera" made in Hong Kong. It's basically a cheaply made plastic lens film camera with a minimum of settings. It shoots 120 format film, which is about 60mm square, so the actual image taken is almost four times the size of typical 35mm film. It's known for taking slightly strange, "dreamy" retro photos. I picked up some expired black and white film (because that's all I could find) and took it to the park today.
They say that you have to just shoot a few rolls of film and make a lot of mistakes. That's how you learn. Well, the first 3 shots I "took" with this camera are a great example. First photo: never happened. I was winding the film, and saw a number "1", my signal to stop winding. Instead I kept winding until I saw the number "2". I thought about trying to rewind it, but I'll just write that off as an easy mistake. Second photo: I think it was a success. I was near the entrance to the park, and wanted to take a photo of the park and the mountain behind it, so I put the focus all the way out. The third photo I took was of some people dancing to promote their candidate in the upcoming presidential election, Park Geun Hye. A few minutes after taking the photo, I realized that I hadn't focused, so it was still set on "mountain" range. Oh, well.
I have a lot to say about the upcoming election, so you'll just have to check back with me in a few days to read about that.
I ordered some more film online, and it should be here by this weekend. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I get some film developed and see how successful I am at my new hobby.
Names
December 9, 2012
Tonight, I helped my language exchange partner pick an English name. It's always fun for me. Nuri Han is now AKA Nicki Han.
Do I have a Korean name? Yeah, I have two: a serious one and a joke one. The joke one is 오만원, Oh Man-won, which is Korean for "Fifty bucks". My serious name is 강지훈, Kang Ji-hun, which I decided on after looking up the 한자 (Chinese Characters). 강 is a common family name that means "river", 지 means "wisdom", and 훈 means "merit".
I don't know what Nicki means.
Urban legends
September 16, 2012
I was at a birthday party last night, and the topic of urban legends came up more than once. I was then introduced to a popular Korean urban legend at dinner tonight.
The first urban legend discussed involves Walt Disney. I had always heard that he was cryogenically frozen, apparently so he could be brought back to life at some future date. There's a lot of variations on this myth, and my favorite is that his frozen body is under the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land, just waiting for the day it can be reanimated and start making Zombie Mickey Mouse cartoons. Anyway, it turns out he was actually... cremated. Bummer. Here's the Snopes article on Disney's remains.
Later in the evening, a friend pulled up this this article from Cracked on her smartphone, and it stimulated some lively discussion. "The 6 Most Frequently Quoted b.s. Statistics"
Here's the list:
6. You Accidentally Swallow About 8 Spiders a Year
5. You Only Use 10% of Your Brain
4. Men Think About Sex Every Seven Seconds
3. Spousal Abuse Skyrockets on Super Bowl Sunday
2. You Must Wait 30 Minutes After Eating Before Swimming
1. Christmas Causes Suicide
I don't know about spiders, but I definitely swallowed a mosquito a couple of weeks ago. I woke up coughing, and had a vague sense of what had happened.
Tonight I was eating dinner at a chicken restaurant in my neighborhood. A Korean friend saw the Pepsi logo on the wall behind us. You know the one, the classic logo from our youth.
She explained to me that Pepsi is an American company, but the product was named by a Korean. According to the story, they had this idea to make a cola, but had no idea what to call it. So they had an international competition to find the right name for their drink, and it was a Korean who had the best entry. They asked him what he wanted as a reward, and he said he wanted to design the logo. Like any patriotic Korean would, he designed the logo to represent the Korean Yin-Yang, or 태극 (taeguk). For a reference, here's the Korean flag, the taegukgi.
I had one of those "CANNOT UNSEE" moments... Once I realized what I was looking at, it was the most obvious thing in the world... the Pepsi logo is the same as the Korean flag!
Anyway, to finish the story, the Korean who named Pepsi said that the name didn't mean anything. It was onomatopoeia. The "pep" is the sound of popping the top off the bottle, and the "si" is the sound of the bubbles fizzing as soon as it's opened.
Great story! Unfortunately, it's 100% not true. Pepsi was introduced in 1902, and the name, PEPSI-COLA, comes from the two main ingredients, pepsin and kola. Here's the evolution of the Pepsi logo. As far as I can tell, the red, white and blue globe logo only dates to the 50s.
In conclusion, I would like to promise that I will do my best to perpetuate these urban myths. I'm definitely going to tell the Pepsi story whenever I have an opportunity. A good story is a good story, regardless of whether or not it's true.
I was at a birthday party last night, and the topic of urban legends came up more than once. I was then introduced to a popular Korean urban legend at dinner tonight.
The first urban legend discussed involves Walt Disney. I had always heard that he was cryogenically frozen, apparently so he could be brought back to life at some future date. There's a lot of variations on this myth, and my favorite is that his frozen body is under the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land, just waiting for the day it can be reanimated and start making Zombie Mickey Mouse cartoons. Anyway, it turns out he was actually... cremated. Bummer. Here's the Snopes article on Disney's remains.
Later in the evening, a friend pulled up this this article from Cracked on her smartphone, and it stimulated some lively discussion. "The 6 Most Frequently Quoted b.s. Statistics"
Here's the list:
6. You Accidentally Swallow About 8 Spiders a Year
5. You Only Use 10% of Your Brain
4. Men Think About Sex Every Seven Seconds
3. Spousal Abuse Skyrockets on Super Bowl Sunday
2. You Must Wait 30 Minutes After Eating Before Swimming
1. Christmas Causes Suicide
I don't know about spiders, but I definitely swallowed a mosquito a couple of weeks ago. I woke up coughing, and had a vague sense of what had happened.
Tonight I was eating dinner at a chicken restaurant in my neighborhood. A Korean friend saw the Pepsi logo on the wall behind us. You know the one, the classic logo from our youth.
She explained to me that Pepsi is an American company, but the product was named by a Korean. According to the story, they had this idea to make a cola, but had no idea what to call it. So they had an international competition to find the right name for their drink, and it was a Korean who had the best entry. They asked him what he wanted as a reward, and he said he wanted to design the logo. Like any patriotic Korean would, he designed the logo to represent the Korean Yin-Yang, or 태극 (taeguk). For a reference, here's the Korean flag, the taegukgi.
I had one of those "CANNOT UNSEE" moments... Once I realized what I was looking at, it was the most obvious thing in the world... the Pepsi logo is the same as the Korean flag!
Anyway, to finish the story, the Korean who named Pepsi said that the name didn't mean anything. It was onomatopoeia. The "pep" is the sound of popping the top off the bottle, and the "si" is the sound of the bubbles fizzing as soon as it's opened.
Great story! Unfortunately, it's 100% not true. Pepsi was introduced in 1902, and the name, PEPSI-COLA, comes from the two main ingredients, pepsin and kola. Here's the evolution of the Pepsi logo. As far as I can tell, the red, white and blue globe logo only dates to the 50s.
In conclusion, I would like to promise that I will do my best to perpetuate these urban myths. I'm definitely going to tell the Pepsi story whenever I have an opportunity. A good story is a good story, regardless of whether or not it's true.
My students
April 4, 2012
It seems like Korean kids are especially funny on certain days. Today was one of those days for me. Here's a conversation I had:
"Teacher, why we should write this? We already speak and understand. If we write, we don't learn. Only our hands will break." Me: "Maybe I want to break your hands." "You are cruel! Cruelly... cruel!"
Then, getting on the elevator after work... "Teacher, we want delicious food." "Oh, do you like chamchi jjiggae?" "Yes... I love you, teacher! Buy us some cup ramyeon!" So I went in the corner store with them and paid w2,200 for their cup ramyeon.
Two weeks ago, one of my students forgot to bring his book to class, so I let him borrow my book. Of course, when the class was over, he put it in his bag and left. I hunted him down the next week, and said, "James! You have my book!" He made me give him my cell phone number. Later that night I received these texts:
Let me translate this conversation into proper English:
"Hello, this is James. I found your book. I will give you the book tomorrow."
"James! You better bring my book, man!"
"I brought it home by mistake. I'm sorry."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
"James"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)