Challenge in pollution p1
If you have lived in Korea any number of years, and if you have tried to satisfy a desire for great vistas, whether they are urban or natural you have plenty to work with here. You can pursue a high rise rooftop in Seoul, with a brilliant view over the river or another one with an encompassing view of Busan and its shimmering bridges and harbors. You can climb up Seoraksan and be transported to prehistoric times with the dinosaur ridge filling you field of vision or scale the tallest peak in the country and take in the fantastic bird-eye view of the whole Jeju island. You can do those and so much more here.
But there is always one thing that will get in your way most of the days you’ll venture out: pollution haze.
Now, if you are thinking: there it is, the frenchman is complaining again. Well french people do complain more than your reasonably healthy daily dose, it is true! But this time I decided I had enough with the moaning about how pollution is the bane of my outdoor photography and enough with the demotivation effect pollution has; I decided to challenge myself to produce images I would be happy with, in spite of the AQI.
So on that tuesday I opened naver map and looked for an easy place to reach either in Gwanaksan or Samseongsan. I found a place I could drive all the way to, more than half way up Samseongsan: 염불암 (Yeombulam).
Once I arrived there and walked around, climbed up all the stairs because it is quite a vertical place. I was deeply excited and I also couldn’t help thinking: how can I have not visited this temple before! Check those few quick iphone shots and you’ll understand why!!
I walked up till the top buddha to check two things: first the view. Well the AQI that day was around 150 so as much of it as I could get! But still it had a screaming potential. Second, if there was a place on the ridge across the valley that was clear of vegetation enough to get a nice view of the temple. And I spotted a bare wave shaped rock, not too far from the beginning of the hiking trail and at about the same height as the buddha. And extra bonus: on that rock I would have the sun on my back so probably less visible pollution. Why delaying?
I’ll spare you a description of the “ascent” as it mostly consisted of fights with bushes, slips in dry dirt that filled my new hiking shoes and a couple of scratches and cuts that still haven’t fully healed! And all that effort to realise that there actually was an old path leading to that rock from roughly where I started going off track... Life!
Documentary style shot from my pointlessly-hardly earned view point. This shot is from a second visit though, I wasn’t granted the luxury of good light that very day!
It was all worth it! The view was there, and I could hear the creativity voice inside my heart beginning to sing. However, it wasn’t going to be easy. Yes I would take the obvious picture, straight on, a promotional shot of the temple, as I have taken so many in the past (the one you can see above).
But let’s face it: aside from the documenting aspect of such a shot how artistic is it? Well, not much. And anyway I pledged to change my approach on landscape photography. So I thought: if the sky is amazing include it, if it is anything but, don’t use it and include foreground instead. And that is what I set to do.
This scene is quite messy but the puzzle pieces were there to create an image: the baby pine on the left, the bent over one on the right, the meager one in the middle, the overhanging branch on top and of course the Buddha statue. So I had to move back quite a bit to use lens compression and fit all those pieces together. I had to focus stack and enhance shadows quite a bit to keep the front details attractive.
I looked for interesting rock textures, trees that would help focus on the temple in the background. It wasn’t hard for 2 reasons: first there was only two open areas with a view on the temple and foliage obstruct a lot of it so few options, second, you must have felt it, regardless of what you were doing at that time, when your creativity, curiosity, lust for a successful result and sheer enjoyment of the process boost your senses to a point where ideas just shoot in front of your eyes faster than you can catch them.
Well that combination made me feel peacefully ecstatic. It’s a grand state to be in and to create from. It makes everything easy, every move meaningful and fill with intent and every sight, a view I want on my memory card. I suppose it’s a focus kind of high!
This is actually the first shot I went for, I loved how the rocks create a sort of half tunnel that directs your eyes to the temple at the back. I am very happy with this one, though the grasses are creating some useless distraction but I wasn't going to cut them anyway. I also liked how the grey lichen patches on the rocks add texture and mirror the roofs of the temple buildings in color.
I took several more compositions that afternoon that I haven’t posted, too many to show here, and some just flat out don’t work anyway.
For several hours I kept hiking up and down the ridge for new possibilities. I was in a rush, I was burning to find a new secret spot, hidden behind trees, with some magical angle I couldn’t think of yet. But not only I couldn’t find more but sunset was upon me, already.
And that is the cliffhanger I will leave you at for this time! What happened at sunset and after needs a dedicated post so I will tell it all in part 2.
As usual, here is the location of 염불암 (Yeombulam). I recommend driving there if you can because you can park directly at the temple and the closest bus stop is quite far, though it is a really pleasant area to walk through before starting to hike. The hike to the temple itself is a road through a much prettier forest than that of the north side of the mountain, it is fairly long but nothing unsurmountable. Do go ahead and visit this mountain jewel!
As always thank you for reading this far, I hope the lower amount of pictures in this post hasn’t disappointed you, there will be more in part 2.
A bientôt!