Hermit Hideaways

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.

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.

Photographer, master printer, author and tutor, Andrew Sanderson’s work is pretty grand and definitely worth a squint. Go have a look and see for yourself.

I found him while shopping for black & white film. My Dutch grandfather used Ilford for years.

I was very happy to hear the other day that one of my photos from an earlier issue was selected and made into a poster.

Anyone wishing to scoop one up can do so directly via the site.

The desire for parents to send their children overseas in order to get a solid education is very strong in Korea. Referred to as 기러기 아빠 (wild geese father), a growing number of families are being broken up as mothers and children are sent away to foreign English-speaking countries while the fathers are left at home to cover mounting expenses. Although such experiences may be valuable for the children down the road, such separation can also prove detrimental as it slowly rips away at the fabric of traditional family life. There’s a very good photo essay featured in The New York Times that documents this phenomenon.

It’s just a sad reminder at how jaded the schooling system in Korea has become for parents to go to such extreme measures at insuring that their children receive the proper education they deserve.

Found a really cool travel blog this morning at work. I just opened up an account. Apparently, it’s the largest of its kind, which means great exposure for us little folk trying to get our work out there!

To give you an idea of what’s already on there, skim through this Canadian couple’s set. They go by the name ‘Crazy Canucks’, and their photos are, well, outstanding!

I’m not a purist by any stretch, but I can’t help but scratch my head every once in a while at how some people mistake a camera’s limitations to mean justification for an upgrade. I find all the walls I’ve hit while shooting have led me to really get around and discover my options as opposed to fiddling around hopelessly in a rut, scoffing the machinery. This probably explains why I still haven’t retired my D70 - the very model that’s now harder to come by as Nikon decided to discontinue manufacturing it. The aimless pursuit for the world’s mightiest camera, stacked in all its megapixel glory, remains, indeed, a mystery to me.

I shoot film with Canon and digital with Nikon. I’ve been eyeing the Nikon F6 in some second-hand shops around Namdaemun but haven’t grabbed it yet. I will post several samples of my Canon exposures a little later this week.

I also read a great piece on lens sharpness this afternoon.

Go check out Tim McKenna’s photography site. It looks as though he gets himself to some nice parts of the world - and he has a pretty incredible archive of pics to prove it.

Two great applications I use are Aperture 2.0 and Adobe Lightroom. I read recently that Adobe is releasing an upgraded version of Lightroom. It’s only a beta version but it still looks pretty sweet. There’s a nice little write-up here together with the download.  Be advised that it’s meant to run alongside Lightroom 1.3 and won’t update existing 1.3.1 libraries. Give it a swing. Lightroom rocks. I think the colour renditions are far more accurate that Photoshop. I rarely even use Photoshop anymore.

Had a chat with a friend today, and it made me call to mind a quote I feel sums up how I approach photography. It’s stated by none other than Ansel Adams:

“If I feel something strongly, I make a photograph. I do not attempt to explain the feeling.”