Tag Archives: Beach

Busan in colour

Oct

2017

by Brendan Ó Sé | Comments Off

Hitting Haeundae Beach, Busan with the iPhone to shoot some frames. What could be better?

Here goes the first of two posts from Busan shot on iPhone. The first in colour, the second all black and white shooting using the Provoke camera app.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

Korea’s second city – a city of almost 4 million people – is located in the south east of the country. It’s a city I love. Every time I go there I try to stay in the Haeundae area. Why? Because I love the sea and Haeundae is probably Korea’s most famous beach. I am sure you’ve seen shots of it in summer crowded with Koreans. No? Check this so. I had wanted to see this for myself. Did it actually get that crowded? To be honest, when I was there it wasn’t that crowded. Sure there were lots of people, but it wasn’t so bad.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

I got there at the start of August. I had booked an Air BnB for an overnight stay that promised the beach was only a few minutes from the beach and it was. August in Korea is hot, and I love it. Coming from a country where the sun is an unpredictable visitor I just love being in places where sunshine and heat are almost always guaranteed. Of course, one of the main reasons I love the sun is because of the light it brings. And what is photography if it is not about the light.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

I was saying in my Daegu post about older people in Korea. I love them! They’ve got attitude. On the far end of the beach there is this walkway you can take which will bring you out along the coast. I take this walk every time I am in Busan, but this was the first time I was here in summer, only having been here before in early spring when it is not usual for people to be swimming in the sea. Just as I was heading out on the walk I got sight of these elderly gentlemen bathing in these little pools that formed among the rocks. There was this one guy siting with his arms outstretched as the waves splashed in and around him. I stood there for a while just taking it in. How cool I thought. To the left of him were three other guys sitting in a little pool, all chilling in the sea on this hot August summer’s day. I had intended to head out on coastal walk but this was too good a photo opportunity to pass up. Taking great care in my flip-flops I descended the rocks to get closer to them to get some photographs. They were curious at first as to what it was I found interesting, but then they just ignored me and let me shoot a few frames. I spent a good 15 minutes there shooting in colour and also using the Provoke app to get some black and white images.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

How often do you see a cutout cop perched on top of a public toilet and changing area? Not very often. This was just too cool to pass by. I spent quite a bit of time there trying to get the shot I imagined in my head when I first saw it, and like so many times the mental picture is much more vivid that what you can capture.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

Part of my ongoing series of images – Photographic Punctuation Photo Booth – I have been stoping and engaging with people on the street and taking/making their portrait. Haeundae was a brilliant location for this and I had a lot of fun with the people I met. One of the funny things was to see the shift in things people immediately associate with Ireland when they learn I am Irish. Usually it is Guinness, U2, Roy Keane, maybe an Irish writer, and the odd person who might mention the IRA. I was a little taken aback when one guy started excitedly exclaiming Conor McGregor. I am not sure what to make of that guy, to be honest.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

8 guys gathering for a late-evening picnic.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

Not usually a sunset photographer – but could not resist this.

Busan (Shot on iPhone)

Busan in black and white coming up. Stay tuned…

Four seasons in one day, but never a full summer

Aug

2015

by Brendan Ó Sé | Comments Off

“Let’s head to the beach this weekend”

“Ya, great idea. I could do with a swim.”

Weekend comes and it is a wash out. You just cannot make any plans.

That is what most people complain of when the topic of Irish summers comes up. But it is true – you just cannot plan.

We are into the last month of the summer and it is safe to say it has been one of the least warm in living memory. The mercury has not risen above 20 degrees. Most days it hovers around 14 – 16 degrees. Most days it rains. Most days there is a wind that bites.

I know we have it good in many ways here in Ireland. We are coming out of the worst recession to ever hit this country, but I wonder how many of us would swap Greek weather for their debt. Would the Greeks swap their debt for our weather? I doubt it. They may have crippling austerity, but they have blue skies. Could it be possible for us to invest in research and see if somehow we could just slowly slip our way down to the Portuguese coast? Could it?

What we call summer is passing quickly. Soon the kids will be back in school and the dark winter nights will creep in. Kids love the beach and love the sea. Yesterday morning, I checked the weather on the iPhone and saw that there were semi-cloudy conditions between 2 – 5 p.m and temperatures getting into the high teens. The high teens! Excited about this I suggested to my wife that we head to Inchadonny (a spectacular long beach in West Cork) for a picnic. Within a hour we were parked up and picnicking in the car. It was easier, warmer, and less blustery to have it in the car.

Irish beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world. With our inclement and likely-to-disappoint weather, the beaches are not surrounded by big, high-rise hotels. Fields of green stretch out for as far as the eye can see. What should be crowded beaches full of people enjoying all that a sunny summer’s day can offer are starkly the opposite. So few people. I got chatting to the lifeguard:

“What’s the summer been like? Has it always been this quiet?”

“Today’s busy, boy.” “Some days you might have a handful of people.”

“Ah, sure, they say August might be better.”

“This is August; August the first.”

Anyway, the kids loved the picnic and loved playing in the sand, digging holes and being buried up to their necks in it. We did not brave the water. It looked freezing. We can hope, I suppose, that they promised better weather might come in this month of August. The temperatures might even topple over twenty. We might see blue skies and that damn wind might turn into a breeze.

Looking on the positive, I did manage to get some Shot on iPhone 6 photographs yesterday. Hope you like them.