Fireworks Fail

With no fireworks I had to resort to photoshop…

So after the articles and advice I went to the exact WRONG place. However, to be honest, there was a bit of misunderstanding and that happens sometimes. Basically, the story went that my wife and I had a meeting in Haeudae for a project that we are doing. The lady lives in the iPark directly across from Gwangali. So, we sort of thought that we could just get right on to the roof and shoot from there. Sadly she didn’t really understand why we wanted to go up there and didn’t think that it was a good idea.

At this point we were left with very few options and with my wife’s interest draining we stuck to Haeundae and tried our luck. On this day our luck was not so good and we ended up wondering around finding a decent location with an alright but pedestrian view of the bridge.

The sad part of this story is that after I got set up and fired off a few shots through the railing along the edge of Marine city, we waited about 2 hours for the show to begin. Just before the show, the police show up and tell my wife and I to leave. We were not sitting in an unsafe area nor were there any warnings or signs telling us that we couldn’t be there. I thought that I’d lucked out but it was too good to be true.

None of the old tricks worked either. My wife pleaded with the organizers to at least show us an alternative location as I “came from Canada to shoot the fireworks” but we were met with blank faces and moronic gestures to stand across the street like everyone else. They later went hunting for the rest of the photographers trying hard to get decent shots without the surround equipment, garbage, and other obstructions.

Looking through my lens and having families who’d camped out on the street for as long as we had been sitting on that railing or maybe even long glare at us for blocking their already obstructed view we decided to head home before the show even started. What a waste of time.

The conclusion is that I blame myself for the most part for not heading up the mountains as those are clearly the way to go. However, to the Busan Fireworks Festival Organizers, I think a bit of consideration should have been exercised when deciding to extend the area that had already been marked off and people (not just myself) had invested time into.

Also an idea for the future would be to have photo-zones set up for photographers to be to reserve in advance and receive a pass so that the headache of battling with people just wanting to catch the show could be avoided. Finally, I just have to ask “why was the entire sidewalk taped off in marine city?” Really, people are not going to fall into the ocean or break through the railing. It just seems such over kill especially when it could have been used by photographers (with a reservation) to use.

 

 


Jason Teale 

Photographer, educator, podcaster

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Photographing Korea and the world beyond!