Just Get Out and Shoot!

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These days I have less and less time to shoot. I have so many things on the go that I pretty much don’t have time unless I shoot inside of classrooms or from the driver’s seat of my car. However, I have started taking my camera everywhere with me just in case something pops up and I can pull over and shoot. This is a different strategy than the weekends of shooting that I normally did. At any rate, last night was one of those “Screw it! I gotta get some shots” nights.

I had just a small hour of time to shoot and I had to make the most of it. Ryan Griffiths who is a local photographer and reviewer on Photography Ebook Reviews, messaged me about a roof top in Seoungnam dong, otherwise known as “Old Downtown”. I decided, as I was drove up to it, to actually shoot from the top of it. Now, this is not as easy as it seems as parking in Old Downtown is a nightmare. Driving a a car instead of a motorcycle means that I actually have to find parking, which is another nightmare as Saturday nights are crazy down there.

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As I drove up to the parking garage, all three floors were full but as usual they were letting cars in anyway. As I drove up a car pulled out and I got a space within seconds, much to the disappointment of the guy who tried to cut in front of me and take it. At any rate, I posted this because one of the challenges I have now because I mainly drive a car. What starts off as “Screw it! I gotta get some shots” turns into “Screw this! I’m going home” but not tonight! Things really fell into place.

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As I got up to the door I quickly remembered that there was a guard front and center before the doors to the apartment. However, with a pretend phone call to a pretend person that lived in the building I just followed some people in and the guard was none the wiser. Getting to the top was interesting as there were two very noisy dogs on the 41st floor who immediately started barking as I walked passed. Being on the roof itself is difficult as well due to the fact that a large amount of people in the building next to it can see you. My advice would be to stay in the stairwell until the light drops down a bit. Don’t just wander around up there or people may think that you are think about jumping off or something.

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At any rate, The sunset was mild but the pink showed through the clouds and created some great colour. With a festival going on in the area there were also lights popping up around old downtown as well. The best thing about this times was that I had a chance to plan out my shots while waiting in the stairwell and was able to take advantage of the fading light and the blue hour without wasting any time. What resulted was a series of decent shots with a minimum about of time. I was down and out of the building in just over an hour. Parking was only 700 won too!

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Jason Teale 

Photographer, educator, podcaster

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Photographing Korea and the world beyond!