Winter
Winter in Seoul is boring. Oh, there is a plethora of activities to do in the city, of course. In the mountains too, especially if it snows. But if it doesn’t snow…
Korean landscape, as a whole, is very bare in winter, the air dryness is so harsh that there is no other color in nature, aside from brown and evergreens’ needles. Even evergreens are less green. It feels akin to 3-4 months of hibernation, a pause in the otherwise lush environment of the peninsular country.
I always dreaded winter. First, it is cold. negative Celcius degrees (under 32°F) are not the kind my body agrees with. Also, the bareness of the land is invariably accompanied by cloudless skies, and so, harsh sunlight. Not a photographer’s dream, quite the opposite!
This is my attempt at embracing those issues rather than staying home hiding from them.
I wasn’t entirely honest in my description of Korean winter, there is one aspect that redeems it somewhat: the sun rises much later so I can sleep longer. For a bear like me, it’s a godsend!
The place is the Han River of Seoul's suburban city, Hanam. Here used to be an island but after the river was dammed it became simply a riverbank. It is dark, sunrise is in about 30 minutes, the temperature is -15°C/5°F. The ground, a lush green and soft ankle-high grass during the summer, is now flat brown and rock-hard. I can see some stars in the clear sky. It is quiet. It is cold.
Guessing my way through this frigid world I startle a water deer from its dawn slumber. Its run makes me jump, I wonder what else I’m about to stumble upon in that frozen jungle of tall dense cattails, trees, and frozen puddles. Hopefully nothing. Eventually, I find a fallen tree entirely covered in a just-as-dead-looking parasite. That will be a fantastic foreground! I just need to let my camera express itself here and hope the sun will be kind enough to rise at the angle I need it.
Before I can actually feel the sun light warm my frozen cheeks, some vibrant “alpen glow” sets fire to the trees and cattails in the background. The morning is promising!
Here she is, casting her life giving warmth on the land in front of me. I tried to use contrast to emphasize on two details in this image, can you find them?
Now I can show what attracted me to this fallen tree: the gate of light the parasite created while growing along the dead trunk. I also find worth of interest that the mountains on the too left half are mirrored by the shadow area on the bottom right half, divided by the frozen stream’s line leading to the sun. Sometimes, nature aligns everything for a strong composition itself!
This is the last capture from that morning, a simpler composition of contrast, complementary colors and shapes.
Frozen, red and stiff fingers and toes later, it is time to hop back in the car for the long drive home.
Long but heated! Heated!!
The previous images are of the intimate landscape type. Now I want to move to my favorite type, natural portraits.
In a mountain you will be familiar with if you follow my hikes in this blog, Samseong Mountain, there is a peak that can be better described as a group of rock needles hurdled together. People rock climb here, you can find permanent hooks on some faces. I should join them someday! If you stand on the last needles, above a 10-meter drop, you can see a pine tree growing in a V-shaped break in the rocks.
I discovered it one evening I climbed up there to enjoy a light snowfall. It became a heavier snowfall than planned at about sunset time. I was in a precarious position on top of my narrow rock but I was absorbed by the view. Snow obscured far away mountain ridges and big flakes abundantly floated down between me and my subject. Mesmerizing. This unstoppable and calm dynamic scene lasted until there was too little light for me to shoot.
When I finally came back to my senses it was pretty dark and I had to make my way down the peak in one piece quickly!
The slowly darkening sky revealed the blue light, typical of this hour. The nightly mood emanating from those cool tones feels very special to me. It makes the scene seem like a secret garden one can only access at dusk if one has the old cryptic map that leads to it…
The night passes and a new day will soon come to life. The horizon is already distinguishable, sunlight will soon bring the relief of warmth on the frozen land. I stand again on the same rock needles as that other snowy evening. This time it is bitterly cold and windier than comfortable up here. But I know the light will happen, I can see it, I can feel it. So I wait and try to forget the drop beneath my feet. The sun has to lift itself above a band of clouds above the horizon so I wait a little more…
Here it is, the wonderful sidelight that sublimes the shapes of the pine and its rocky companions. Words aren’t needed here. Feel the sunlight on the right side of your face and the cold wind sting the left side. Feel nature wishing you a majestic morning.
On the moment I only saw a tree in a particularly adequate place and position. But my wife and my father in law saw something else in it. My wife saw a dragon’s head in the rightmost branch. My father in law assimilated the whole shape of the tree to a bird, seen from behind. Beauty is truely in the eyes of the beholder. I hope you also see your own visual interpretation of this magical tree.
Cold winter days are essentially paradoxical in that they are freezing and, so, unwelcoming. But they leave a long-lasting warm impression in my memory. I could elaborate on that, write an even longer blog post but I probably shouldn’t.
Therefore, I will leave you with a series of images that I hope will illustrate the duality and the beauty of winter.
On lunar new year. The sun has been up for a couple of hour now, snow just stopped falling…
I look out the window of my in-laws’ living room and nature offers me this gift…
It’s a new year, it’s a new day, it’s new dawn… and I’m feeling good.
Thank you for reading about my winter photography challenge. I did my best to render this ominous season as interesting as I could, I hope you enjoyed the result. I have taken a lot more image this season so selecting the ones to write about was a challenge. But if you want to see the other images I have posted in the past cold months follow me on instagram @romainphoto_outside or facebook.
Feel free to leave your impression on my work in the comments below or hiking/photography suggestions and share my blog so that, one day maybe, I can meet you on a hike!
A bientôt!
