I haven't had a flash for my camera since 2012. It's not that I hate them or anything, I just don't see the necessity for the kind of pictures that I take. Believe it or not, a flash isn't necessary for amazing night pictures. In fact, 97% of your night pictures (we're talking general landscape here, not portrait) will look better without the flash. Night photography is a whole different ballgame than 'day' photography. You'll have to reverse some settings typically used in the day due to the sun not being there for you. Also, you're going to have to switch your DSLR off automatic mode and click it right on over to manual mode. Scary, I know, but I'll walk you through a few tips to help you capture gorgeous, crisp night photos. FOR ... Read More
Long Neck Karen Tribe
I just met some of the most beautiful women on earth. Sure not in your 'modern' sense of beautiful, but the ladies of the Long Neck Karen Tribe are far more attractive to me than anyone I see all photoshopped up in Cosmo. I'm fascinated by people. I've always enjoyed reading National Geographic since I was a little girl, and I distinctly remember a story covering the Long Neck Tribe so many years ago. I would have never dreamed I'd get to meet them in real life. Yes, there are men in the tribe as well, they're mostly field-workers, and are rarely seen by tourists (and do NOT wear the brass rings). The Long Neck ladies start wearing heavy brass rings around their necks (and ankles) from a very young age, most likely around 3-5 years old. ... Read More
How to Photograph Fireworks
A few weeks ago I posted about the gigantic International Fireworks Festival in Busan, and had a lot of interest in a tutorial about how to shoot fireworks. So here I am today, delivering on promised goods! We're going to have a short and sweet lesson on how to get the most out of your firework pictures. Let's face it. We've all been to that amazing fireworks show, just to come home, take a look at our camera roll, and realize we shot jack squat for pictures. Well I'm here today to teach you how to capture those fireworks in a way that makes them look just as amazing (or better) than they did at the show! What you need: -A camera that has a manual mode (fully adjustable aperture, iso, and shutter speed) If you have no idea what I'm ... Read More
The temple on the sea
Notice anything different around here? Yeah, my last design didn't stick around too long. I'm very indecisive on certain things, and when I don't have it exactly the way I want, I change. :) This new design is a product of my curiosity as I dove head first into html and css coding, as well as my 'wanting something better' mindset. I'd have to say I'm loving the process of learning blog design! Each time I make a new layout for my blog, I learn more and more. Thanks for being patient readers and rolling with the flow. A couple of weekends ago I was asked to go on an impromptu girls trip to Busan. We had little to no agenda, and it was fun figuring out things to do on the fly! You may have read earlier, but we went to a cat cafe (yeah if ... Read More
A saturday photo session
Happy weekend my dear readers! Today I have a treat for you. I've realized that in the past couple of years Derik and I haven't had many good pictures of us taken together. I've been asking my husband for weeks to come do a self-taken photo session with me, and today was the day! The weather only cooperated for about an hour, but we got a few good ones! I'll try to convince him sometime in August (maybe the week after our vacation) to take some more with me while it's sunny outside! Check out a few shots from the session! Make sure you also check out my sponsors! ... Read More
Using the shadows
It's official. I have way too much time by myself. My husband works hard every single day, and I am so lucky to be able to spend more time at home than last year. The couple friends I have here in Korea unfortunately work a lot as well. I'm left with entertaining myself for hours each week...thus the creation and journey of my blog. I also love photography (duh). Since I have a huge absence of photo subjects, I'm forced obligated to not only stage myself behind the lens, but also in front of it with self portrait photography. I haven't spent much time playing with shadows, and decided to give it a shot (literally). I don't have very good lighting in my apartment anyway, so I took what I had and went with it. I use my typical set up: ... Read More
Thanks for having a birthday buddha
It's been a few weeks, but you may remember our short road trip we took up north to visit Seoraksan National Park for buddha's birthday. I posted my favorite photos from the whole three day weekend trip here. I'm finally getting around to posting the rest of the photos. I've decided to work backwards from the end of our trip towards the beginning. Don't ask me why...89% of the things I do don't have a specific logic or reason (perfect example is why I am still up at 2:33am writing a blog post). I'm starting with the destination spot of our road trip (Seoraksan National Park). Seoraksan is probably one of the most breathtaking pieces of scenery I've seen in all of Korea. We barely tapped into the beauty of the park, due to being rained ... Read More
Seoraksan favorites
Last weekend we took an epic trip up north to Seoraksan National Park. If you live in Korea and haven't been there...you're seriously missing out! The drive up is gorgeous, and the park itself is breathtaking. Like a majority of national parks back home, this isn't a place you can just wiz through in one day. We'll be going back for sure sometime within the next year. We although we had three days of fantastic road-tripping, the weather only cooperated with us for two of the days. Sunday was a rainy, dreary day, and not many pictures were taken. However, the amount of pictures I took the first two days made up for the loss. Today I got extremely overwhelmed looking through all the gorgeous photos that I decided just to post a few of ... Read More
Breakfast in seosan
A few weekends ago, we packed up the car and headed up to Seosan to visit Ethan and Sandra. It was a late-night 4:30 hour road trip up north, but luckily we had the company of Amber and Jared with us. For those of you who don't know, all six of us went to the same college back in Missouri. We graduated at different times and studied different things, but somehow all ended up in Korea. It's been so great to have friends here that share a similar history. The trip up to Seosan was planned (by Ethan) to celebrate Sandra's birthday, and looking back on it, I can't believe we hadn't made that trip sooner! The four hours in the car went by like a breeze; we arrived in Seosan (after only getting lost once) at around 1:30am to the cutest little ... Read More