Hermit Hideaways

Ken Rockwell threw up his ‘Top 10 List’ of best and worst lenses. I’ve always enjoyed how he tears through the bullshit and gets right down to the bare bones in getting the most out of your gear. You’ll soon learn that it has nothing to do with what camera body you sport around but the accessories you slap on it.

As for the lack of visual stuff on here lately, my apologies. I’m off to Tongdo Temple in Busan tomorrow for a temple stay and will throw up some snaps Sunday night. I was going to catch Travis at Pentaport Saturday night but it looks as though I may watch Kasabian instead on Sunday. Anyhow, just to keep y’all in the know.

Not at all to do with photography but I found this article that made it in to today’s edition of The Korea Times nonetheless newsworthy to share with my loyal readers. Go have a squint if you’re interested. Those of you already in Korea head down to the Seoul Global Center on the 3rd floor of the Seoul Press Center and fire away with your list of questions.

Pimatgol is a long, narrow stretch that runs from the Kyobo Bookstore in Jongno-2ga all the way through to Dongdaemun. Literally meaning the ‘path to avoid horses’, it is flanked by restaurants, bars and tea houses and used to serve as a secret passageway for high ranking officials during the Joseon era.

I took this set last year for the Pentaport Rock Festival. Good times. A friend of mine organizes the festival every year so I was able to scoop up media passes that put me right up at the front for the Chemical Brothers. I’ll likely be going to see Travis on July 26th. Here’s the rest of this summer’s line-up.

Nikon’s new plug-in looks killer. Called ‘Silver Efex Pro’ it’s compatible with both Photoshop and Aperture. I even got a demo with the email the other day. I’m especially liking the ‘State-of-the-Art Grain Engine’ - a nice little addition that allows users to mimic the silver halide process and create the highest quality black and white images possible from scanned or digital colour photographs.

The photo below was taken by German photographer Jurgen Muller. Great stuff.

I have always liked Apgujeong. Last night found me swinging by to snap a few pics for a new article I’m hammering out. The area never fails to surprise or amaze me.

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) will be hosting their 4th event toward the end of July. This time around, a select group will get to travel to the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The event is open for everyone. Simply visit the link and apply online.

I have been on two KTO tours, both to Jeollanam-do and Gangwon-do, and I must say they were pretty insightful. They truly are a great way to get out and see those hard to reach places in Korea that you don’t normally get to explore on larger scale tours.

I have been meaning to get here myself, and Shim’s Image of Korea piece stirs up that desire even more after looking at his set today. Amazing work.

Pretty hard to keep it under wraps when arguably the world’s best camera muscles up their top end line of DSLRs. After a flood of speculation, it was made official - the D700 will be hitting stores soon. Yesterday, in Amsterdam, Nikon Europe let it all out of the bag.

I was out the other day scaling through the backstreets of Seoul near 광희문 (Gwanghuimun Gate) and couldn’t resist snapping this common summer street scene.