Seongsan Ilchulbong

Day 1
After the very long travel, I arrived to Seongsan Ilchulbong, 성산일출봉 in Hangul alphabet. I had heard plenty of nice things about this place: it's an ancient volcanic cone, located on the eastern part of the island, and its name can be translated as Sunrise Peak. There's a big extinct crater on top of it, surrounded by sharp rocks, just like a sort of crown.
I got to my hotel, facing the peak, and went out for some pictures at around sunset time; I was still a bit tired from my long travel (and also, from jet-lag, as there's a 7 hours difference, during summer, with respect to France), but I didn't really care. I was there for taking pictures and seeing nice places, and that's what I wanted to do then.

I took quite a few shots, then I decided this one was the best. The sight on the peak was really impressive.

For dinner, I've been invited to a Korean man's place, where we've had a nice Tteokbokki (떡볶이). He is an english teacher, and his pupils were at his place for english lessons. Really nice, as I've been able to talk to them. They were all very friendly, and I'm really happy I've had the chance to meet them.

After a beer with my new Korean friend, before going to bed, I had a look at the predicted sunrise time for the next day, as I wanted to see the Sunrise Peak... well guess?, at sunrise! I knew I would have been incredibly tired, but nothing could really stop me, so...

Day 2
I woke up early in the morning, and aimed at the sunrise peak, looking for a place on the beach where I could have the sun rising from behind the extinct volcanic cone. I finally found what I thought it was the best place, placed my camera and... waited for the sun!
The dawn was so fantastic, absolutely romantic I would say. I was thousands and thousands of kilometres far from home, waiting for the sun to warm the day... and it all felt like heaven.
Waiting there was worst the effort: I caught the very first "diamond" from the sun, and everything was next to perfect.

After sunrise, I went hiking up the Ilchulbong, where I took some more pictures of that strange but wonderful place.

As you can see, this one was shot in HDR, which gives these amazing saturated colors. It's a view from the top of the peak, toward the small village and the rest of the island.

In this final shot, you might notice the sharp rocks which surround the crater.
You're not allowed to go down the crater, as they want to preserve the place from turists.

Pretty soon I found out that temperatures can be really hot there. I was nevertheless able to have a nice run around the place, which again allowed me to find some very nice spots. Unfortunately, as I never bring my camera with me when running, got no photos of the nice places I've seen.
It was soon time for lunch, and I went for some traditional local food: a seafood soup, with their typical Abalone inside.

Then, after lunch, it was time to leave for my next destination: Seogwipo.
Goodbye Ilchulbong, I really enjoyed this place!

Two weeks in South Korea

For those who don't know about it, CPEM is the Conference on Precise Electromagnetic Measurements. It is hold every two years, sometimes in the States, sometimes somewhere around the world. It's an important meeting for people working in the measurements field, and particularly interesting for us as one of the main topics is about fundamental constants. As I am directly involved in an experiment aimed at determining the molar-Planck constant NAh, I had to participate too, and... Guys, this was a very nice experience, as the 2010 CPEM was in South Korea!

It was the first time, for me, for such a long travel... It was even the first time I was going outside of Europe, as I had only been in France, Ireland and Poland before.
The conference was lasting just a few days, but I decided to leave a bit before, such that I could travel around the country for sightseeing. A little of internet searching, to find the best spots, and a lot of excitement (and even a bit of fear, as I was leaving alone, and I would have met my colleagues only once at the conference place, on the second week).

I soon found out that Jeju, the island off the southern coast, was considered as one of the best places not only of Korea, but eventually worldwide, so my choice went for it, given my limited amount of time.

On June 6th, I left early in the morning from Grenoble (it was around 6 AM when I took the bus to the Lyon airport... damn!), then took the air plane from Lyon to Paris, where I had my coincidence for my very first intercontinental flight.
Flying on a Boeing 777 is a real pleasure: you've got your own monitor, where you can watch movies, documentaries, and much more.
The flight lasted around 10h, which is quite a lot for a direct flight. By the way, time will pass quite fast: you have some sleep, you're offered with food, and if you're lucky you can even find some interesting people to talk with.

The final destination of the flight was Incheon International Airport, but when I got there, after Passport check and custom controls, I had to move to Gimpo Airport, where I had my last flight to Jeju-do. In Gimpo, they've been so kind to allow me to get on the earlier flight, and they even offered me first class comfort (still I don't see why, but would you ever complain about that?).

When I finally arrived to Jeju, I took the final bus to my first final destination: Ilchulbong.

I got there late in the afternoon, one day after my leaving from home. That's where my real adventure started!

In the next posts I will tell you about my journey through the Jeju Island, and then through the rest of Korea.
Stay tuned!

Some sort of home studio photos

I was at home, some days ago, in the afternoon, and I was getting a bit bored, so... I took my camera, looked around me and wondered what I could do.

The answer comes quite easily: I have my new iPhone 3Gs, I have some apples, and I've just seen an inspiring photo on flickr. So, here we go!

First thing, I need some white background. Unfortunately, I don't have any large white cloth or anything similar, thus.. it's a hard task to start like this. No problem, I say to myself: some white papers will do a good job, surely. It's certainly not as a soft box, but that's not that bad either!

So, here we go: white papers on the table, overlapping each other, an apple, my iPhone, and a bit of light.

I set up my beloved Canon 580EX II on the stand, white umbrella opened, and I start playing around. Also, I think a bit of filling light might be worth, so I also open my gold reflector, and place my camera on the tripod, remote control in hands, and curtains down, so that the only light really comes from my source only.

I start shooting changing compositions, but what I get is not really what I'm looking for. The reason is quite simple: the apple is nice, the iPhone itself is nice, but... The screen of the iPhone is off, and it looks really sad!

So, here comes the idea: iPhone screen on, longer exposure time.

The iPhone screen, even if at full brightness, still is not bright enough compared to the strong light of the strobe. If, as I was doing, I shoot at 1/200, f/5.6, the screen just looks too dark.

So, easy solution, I rise the exposure time up to 1/4. This way, still the only light I have is the one from my strobe, since the room is otherwise almost completely dark. The rather long time exposure, on the other hand, permits the screen of the iPhone to be bright enough to appear.

Also: I want the main subject of the photo to be the apple, not the iPhone itself. The iPhone has to be there only to give a meaning to the apple; this is the reason for a rather short depth of field given by the f/5.6 aperture, which leaves the iPhone blurred, while the apple appears perfectly on focus.

The final effect is: the bright and colourful screen of the iPhone catch your attention at first, but since it is blurred, your attention is driven away. You start following the earphones, which, by making a loop around the apple, finally concentrate your attention on the fruit itself.

I like the final effect quite a lot; the strobe is camera left, while on the right I have the gold reflector for filling, which also adds a bit of warm tones.

The picture is taken with my now almost-always-on-camera 85mm f/1.8.

Still unsatisfied, I decide to try something completely new to me: smoke.

I have some incense somewhere in my house... It's one of those things I like to use sometimes, and that might eventually be useful to create a nice atmosphere in case some nice girl decides to come to my place ;)

I change the light set-up, place my strobe on camera right, with a snoot to direct the light in the direction I want, and I place my 5-in-1 reflector with the black side as a background; perfect, ready to go!

I light up the incense, switch off the lights and... well, the mood is really nice now, so let's start shooting.

The room is completely dark now, so I can hardly see the smoke coming from incense (next time I will do certainly differently). I focus on the burning part of the incence, rise the camera to keep the focus distance, at start shooting almost at random. From time to time, I blow toward the smoke, to create some turbolences, which is what gives that nice shapes to smoke pictures.

Meanwhile, my mother calls me on the phone:

It is really funny. Looking at the photos preview on my camera screen really makes me feel happy, just like a child.

Postprocessing is really funny too. Smoke pictures come essentially as gray shapes on a black screen; nothing you would scream about, probably. The nice thing comes when you invert the pictures: now you have gray smoke on white background, and if you add colours... you can get something amazing. Also, you can start playing with mirroring, overlaying, and so on...

Here's one example:

Doesn't this look like some sort of a woman portrait? I love this one. I simply mirrored the image and inverted again one of the two. Placed side by side, this is the result.

Also, I wanted to see what I could get by overlying the two mirrored images of another smoke picture:

This looks like a mermaid, doesn't it? I find this to be unbelievable: I wouldn't be able to paint, but letting the nature paint for me can be even better, if you consider this is only a matter of chance!

I also love the smoke revolutions on this one:

Here I only added some colour gradients; quite cool how the smoke rises, uh?

Finally, something really classic: just a blue tone added, all the rest comes from the smoke itself:

I think I would spend hours looking at how strange and unpredictable nature is...