In our trying to catch up on nearly three weeks of Korea craziness, we failed to include a few fun activities that we did. First, two weeks ago, Sarah, myself and our foreign teacher collective decided to go to the beach on a Saturday. Why not, right? It was a perfect day for it and only two hours away by bus. Considering how fast and changeable the weather is here, we lucked out. (We go to work in the morning with not a cloud in the sky and an hour later in the middle of your class its thundering all of a sudden). One of co-workers somehow knew of this amazing spot where not many people go—something to do with the place being right next to this fancy large beach resort or something. But whatever the reason, the place was beautiful and empty—exactly what we wanted. We had a fantastic time playing frisbee, swimming, drinking Hite and Cass (the main beer Korea) under a beach umbrella and trying to use a make shift pole vault, a random bamboo pole, to pole vault. We all failed at that miserably. Of course, this great time came with a price: Sarah and I got pretty badly burned. And we even put on 50 SPF sunblock too. But, really, it was worth it, even with the cringing of pain in the classroom the next week.
The next weekend, Sarah, myself and two co-workers all went to Gwanju’s Art Biennial which is held, you guessed it, every two years. There are three locations. We went to the exhibit located in Gwanju’s Biennial Hall. It was a phenomenal collection of politically related and inspired art, spanning some 100 years, in an amazing variety of media. I was just so impressed by the quality of the work as well as the inclusion of internationally known artists, like photographer Cindy Sherman. The exhibit, though was as impressive for its quality as its variety. There was such a range of art media, style and emotion in these works. You turn one corner and see grotesque war pictures next to mannequins with nails in their heads in a grisly anti-war art installation, and right near that see a graceful sculpture with a peaceful flower themed backdrop. There was so much to see and digest, I had to quicken my pace in my looking at each work or I would start to get overwhelmed. We were initially a little put off by the high 14 dollar ticket price—which is high in Korea for this kind of thing apparently—but after experiencing this exhibit, I think we all would agree it was worth every wan.
Our first real day in Korea was crazier than expected and more fun than we could have hoped for. The fun, though, was in equal proportion to the hard work.
Our day started with our first official though very un-Korean breakfast of cornflakes and bananas. The day ended with us collapsing in bed from exhaustion at only 6:30!
But, lets take it from breakfast. At 9 a.m. we were expecting one of our bosses, Alex, to pick us up and take us to the hospital to get a physical. He ended up calling us and changing it to 12—which was fine because we were pretty tired from yesterday’s craziness. At 12, Alex and the two of us got in his car, picked up the another new teaching couple, CJ and Elise, and headed to ECC. Surprisingly, they were kind enough to give us lunch at the school and this school lunch was amazingly good: gioza (dumplings), kimche, fish, soup, and rice. The school cooks were a very funny and amiable bunch of women. Afterwards, we headed to a conference room in the school and met a bunch of the native English teachers who work here. They were all so nice to us and very relaxed. We also recieved a packet showing what our schedule would be this week and other information. Our teaching observation would official begin at one. First, though we had to head to the hospital for our physical. This experience itself was pretty memorable.
We hapened to arrive at the hospital during their shift change and had to wait a while before we could be seen. While we were waiting, all the nurses lined up in a line and all listened to an anouncement over the speakerphone. They then proceded to chant these phrases in Korean (we don’t know what they were saying but it kind of sounded like the korean version of the pledge of allegience.) After they were done, work was resumed and we were able to start our physical. We all had our eyes, ears, weight, height, and blood pressure checked. We then went to a differnet floor to get a chest x-ray and have our urine and blood tested. The experiece was much different from hospitals in the states—there really wasn’t much privacy during our physical. For example, we got our blood taken at what looked like a normal school desk while surrounded by a bunch of other lab workers. Also, we had to carry our urine sample across a long halway, trying not to spill it on any of the other patients sitting in the hallway. In a word, that situation was awkward!
After we were finally done with the hospital, we went back to ECC to observe some classes. We observed four differnt classes of different age groups and took notes on our observations and how the teaching system worked. Unfortunately, we wern’t able to observe any kindergarten classes, but we will for the rest of the week.
After we were finally done observing we both were so exaused we could barely stand. We managed to walk home with two other teachers and immediately collapsed in our bed and fell asleep. On the way home, one of the teachers compared the goings-on of the school to a merry go round and that one had to jump on and hold on and go for the ride. We the thought that was an apt comparison as we felt like we just went on a fun and exhuasting carnival ride.
Winogrand was (and continues to be) a huge inspiration for me. Levitt and Arbus were also helpful in the creative process.
This project was very liberating and enjoyable for me because I both really respect this style of photography and thoroughly take pleasure in doing it. I felt the most in my element when doing this kind of photography compared to any other project we’ve done thus far in class. I love the challenge of shooting interesting, candid pictures depicting everyday life, trying to catch people as they are without them seeing the lens and posing. I feel the exposed, spontaneity of daily life has more beauty and excitement in it than constructing a set trying to recreate a false situation.
The strangeness of daily life always provides ample opportunities to capture amazing, intriguing photographs. So, I didn’t go into the project with clear cut goals. I just wanted to be flexible and let the chips fall as they may. I wanted to go where there were people and let them do the rest. Its about being in the right place at the right time—there’s only so much preparation you can do. In that respect, this project was very challenging. Often I thought I’d got a good shot only to see that it was too blurry or too dark or any number of things went wrong. So, I quickly realized quantity was essential to this project. I had to take a lot of shots—there was just no way around that. The unpredictable nature of life made it so. At the same time, knowing that moments are fleeing, I did my best to be as ready as possible.
I think I did a decent job of “capturing the moment” through the depictions of people and their actions. But, of course, improvement is always welcome and I’ll continue exploring this style in the future.
