Let’s start with the iPhone image today for a change. I usually start with the DSLR, but let’s mix things up a little. Somedays I think I am crazy having two separate accounts on Flickr for my iPhone and DSLR work. It all started when I first got into Instagram back in February 2011. I loved the way you could connect a Flickr account to it and upload the images to there directly from the app. The easiest thing was to set up a free account on Flickr. In those days, they had free accounts which allowed you to upload a maximum of 200 images. It all seemed good. Back then I had no idea that mobile photography would be something that I would get really into. It was just a bit of fun. Initially the photographs I took were snaps of things that got my attention, but after a while the potential to create more than a snap became apparent. Over time, the images I was shooting became better composed, more purposeful and the post processing improved also. Then while in Asia in 2012, it all took off. On the streets of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Seoul I really became addicted to using the iPhone 4. I knew I was in project mode and I knew that what interested me (people on the street) I was able to get with ease and discretion with the phone that was also a camera.
When I got back to Ireland in May 2012, is when I really began to think about the images I was posting on the iPhone account. Around that time, I started to pair an iPhone image with a DSLR image. Most days it works, but days like today, the images are not related, and that is fine too. Posting two images each day can be chore. At times, I get frustrated (OK more than at times – photography frustrates me all the time) as appear to be running out of quality images and I think to myself that I could make it easier by posting just the one image each day, be it a DSLR or an iPhone image. But I continue to post both.
Today’s iPhone image was taken in Daegu, Korea. When I went to Asia in spring I promised myself to be brave and to do all I could to get that shot. I did not want to get back home with regrets of not pushing myself to get in close to get a photograph. By and large, I was true to my promise, but of course, many shots went uncaptured. They always do! Not this one below, though. I spotted these two young fellas as I was wandering around. You got to love the fashion style of young Koreans. It is unique. Their hair overgrown and those dark and heavy-rimmed glasses. These two guys were in the back alley having a cigarette – I doubt it was anything illegal, as in Korea you do not encounter that. Everything about the scene called me to photograph it. The guy’s Hello on his t-shirt and two matching bags they were carrying. I entered the alley, focused on them and said “anyoung-a-sey-o” (Korean for hello), they turned and looked at me. Eye contact! And I snapped. Then I gave a little bow, which was returned, and thanked them with a smile. They muttered something in Korean and I went on my way.
The DSLR image is one of the last few images I will post for a while from Tokyo. I have some unconnected photographs that I like that I will post, but they don’t form a series like some of the recent images I posted from there. Or if you want, a series of unrelated images. I guess they have the fact that they are all taken in Tokyo in common.
This one is all about the colours for me, and the eye contact of the pedestrian opposite. Also, I love it because I know that my time in Tokyo is coming to an end (it was the last full day) and I am a nostalgic fool who gets all nostalgic without any adherence to the appropriate time to be nostalgic.
Have a good Sunday!
