Picking up from my last articles detailing the beginning of my journey into photography, I’ll be sharing from the beginning of 2015. I didn’t really make any great strides in the world of photography at this time. I was learning things here and there, but referring to and reviewing my collection from the first 8 months of the year, I mostly took photographs of my 2/3-year-old son.
We took our first trip as a family of three back home to Canada to visit my parents and friends. We thoroughly enjoyed that. Then we made an extra trip to Orlando, Florida. I was happy to take our son to Disney World. The majority of these images will remain private for now, as they are mostly family-related.
Back to South Korea
My photography journey really continues after returning back to South Korea. In August 2015, I returned a few times to the Gwanghwamun area in Seoul, where I captured a few photographs here and there. Here are some of them:
Learning a New Trick – Light Trail Photography
Around October 2015, I was reading articles and watching online videos to learn about new skills. I stumbled across some interesting effects that I thought were really cool and interesting. That involved taking long-exposure photographs at night to capture streams of light.
If you’re new to photography and interested in learning night photography, capturing light trails is something you will likely find very fun, as well as fascinating. At least I sure did! So to give you the short of it, basically you shooting a long exposure photograph, keeping your shutter speed open for a long time. It could be a second, it could be several seconds or longer. Now there’s this interesting thing that happens. When light enters your frame it will stay in the image, even if it was just for a short period. So what happens to moving lights? The trail of the light will be captured for the duration of the shutter. This means that if a light object, like car lights, were to enter your frame from one side to the other, while your shutter is open, you will get this trail effect.
I learned about this effect, quickly bought myself a cheap tripod, and began experimenting. These are some of my first practice tests near my home:
Though not yet perfectly honed, I took this new skill to the city to photograph light trails in the early morning before the sun came up near Gyeongbokgung Palace and continued shooting long-exposure photographs after the sun came up at Cheonggyecheon Stream. These were more experimental than anything, but I was really excited and enjoyed the results at the time. Though looking back on them now, I can tell I was really green, I was new to photography in general, not to mention this new technique. But I’m glad that I was out there learning and experimenting from early on. The following are some of the results of my early morning adventure.
That is a wrap for this article. I will continue sharing more of my early journey in photography in the next article.
January~October 2015
Photograph(s): #1186~3564
Join The Photography Mentoring Program
I’d like to take just a moment to share with you my Photography Mentoring Program. I got started in photography about 9 years ago. I’ve learned a lot and feel I’ve come a long way, as a person and as an artist. I’m hoping to continue my journey, but at the same time, I’d like to do my part in helping and inspiring the next generation of photographers. If you’re learning photography or looking to continue growing and improving your work consider signing up for The Photography Mentoring Program. I will personally help and assist you in your photography journey to the best of my ability.