Gaijinphoto Magazine

Night Shot

Truck selling roasted chickens in Itaewon, Seoul, Korea

As photography goes through the digital transition - which I think most photographers agree is still ongoing - an enduring problem has been the ability for digital cameras to capture low-light photos with acceptable noise (distortion) levels. Digital gives the photographer the ability to constantly change the light sensitivity (ISO) whereas film was restricted to the ISO of the inserted film, which could be changed (pushed or pulled) but required the whole roll to be processed the same way. Digital is much more user-friendly allowing the user to shoot in sunlight and low light with ease. The problem has been noise and the capability of the camera. Leica M Range-finders (which I once used) were legendary for their ability to shoot in low light because of incredible (and expensive) optics, and the lack of a moving mirror to cause undue camera shake. This is a capability that I have been missing for some time. No longer.

The Canon 5D Mark II has given me that loving feeling again. I have been shooting with the EOS 1D Mark III, which is really good in low light, but the 5D Mark II, with Canon EFL lenses, really makes photos pop, and makes the previously impossible, possible. The above shot is just a test shot, shot at 1000 ISO. The technology in the 5D Mark II makes this look like an easy catch, but in the past, unless I had a Leica M with 1600 speed film, I would not have even tried to shoot it. 

Korean Fan

Korean fans on display on Insadong-gil, Seoul. 

Pictures from a Walking Exhibition

Life is lived in pictures. Pictures of life pop up before us all the time - but we are too busy to recognize them as something significant, something worthy of remembrance. Snapshots of birthdays, family, graduations, weddings etc. are different since we recognize those moments as requiring capture. But it is the day-to-day comings and goings of people in their daily lives that often escape us and that must be recognized for what they are, our history. These are our hieroglyphs - these tell the story of what we did when we were here. The story of where we lived, what we ate, who we befriended, loved and lost.

Our lives are lived in private but are traversed in public. Once these moments become pictures (photos),they go from being lost moments in time to things that live on for their own sake, as their own things - things that people admire, reflect on, recoil from and disdain. They traverse time and space having once belonged to the subject, then the photographer, eventually landing in the public domain. It is fitting that they be of the public since they invariably end up belonging to the public - free for individual interpretation. 

Life is these moments of joy, grief, mystery, pain, suffering, exuberance and wonder - that can only be noticed after the shutter goes click, and the nameless subjects move through the black and white moment that was once a part of their life but now exists only in a photo.