Korean Retrospective: Jeonju
Jeonju’s name roughly translating to “the perfect region”, it is a tourist city that takes pride in the tradition and nature. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains and parks giving it a more rural feel than either Busan or Seoul, and the tourist part was peppered with historical buildings and temples.
BARDO: summer of 2020
So this text was a long time comin’, and in a way it’s useless at this point, because BARDO is sold out as far as I know. But since the editors of my university newspapers couldn’t be bothered with local artists, I figured I’d avoid the middleman and just put it up on my blog.
Korean Retrospective: Busan
ICCV 2021 seems like a million years ago.
Seeing people with masks in my photos doesn’t seem strange at all, and keeping one’s distance from others doesn’t seem as cold now as it did then. In a way, some aspects of Korean culture (such as food, snacks, and music) seem more natural now when I have plethora of Korean stores and amazing restaurants at my doorstep. Originally, I was intending to post a series of photographs as a journal of sorts, like I did for my “Mexico journals” but I somehow never got around to it. This feels as good of a time as any to continue posting the photographs from that trip, so here we go. First in line: Busan.
COVID Journal: Rebuilding London
When the lockdown started, I used my spare time to document the changes I saw in my environment, and in the city of London. On this particular Wednesday, I decided to shoot what seemed to be the only people I saw around: builders and property maintainers.
Mexico journal: unpublished work
Throughout my journey I’ve seen and done many things - this lead to a bunch of images. A lot of these images don’t really fall into any particular category, so here is a dump, nicely captioned as there is no real cohesive story tying them together. Images are grouped in “galleries”, loosely related by themes.
2020 photography favourites
I’ve made a conscious effort to spend more time “reading” and seeking out good photography. Any genre was fair game - I was and still am seeking myself in the vast worlds of photography. Through that, I (re)discovered some beautiful photos, photographers and/or photography publications. I thought it would be a fun experience to share these here as a reference of sorts, for my future self or anyone else in my position.
Mexico journal: coconuts
When I was set on a path to Mexico, I expected many many things.
What I haven’t expected is that I’d fall in love and miss coconuts so much.
Mexico journal: Cancun
There is not much to say about Cancun; it is a prime tourist destination with the third busiest airport in the world during the pandemic. It also didn’t exist 50 years ago.
A lesson in humility and 2021 resolution
It has been, it has been a root of many personal and professional changes, and when all is said and done, it thought me a lot about what type of person I am and want to be. Some many things and resolutions are in many ways personal, but there is one that relates to this blog which I wanted to share here as well.
2020 in Photos
This was a yeas where I took my photography on another level.
I noticed that I’ve improved noticeably in the quality and consistency of the images I’ve produced. I still feel like most of what I do is shit and that I do NOT spend nearly enough time shooting, but when all is said and done, I’m happy with what this year brought to me photographically speaking. This is a brief preview of the images I’ve produced over the year.
Mexico journal: Tulum
There are a few places in 2020 that do not give a fuck about a certain pandemic and Tulum is definitely one of them. Here is a brief journal from my day spent there with Tamy, Ana, and Hugo.
Mexico journal: markets
Markets are the reflection of a culture or something like that.
Which is why they are the best and the worst thing to visit when visiting a new place - they are the best place to learn about it, but also the easiest way to get scammed. Mercado 23 and 28 in Cancun are the polar opposites of each other - Mercado 23 is the market for the locals and Mercado 28 is for sort-of tourists.
Goodbye Instagram?
Last week, my Instagram account got deactivated, for “breaching the community guidelines”. There was no explanation, simply: “error, you cannot log in”. I’ve spent some time trying to get the account back but it’s getting clearer by the day that that is not going to happen.
Am I going to switch to twitter instead?
Mexico journal: on culture (Xcaret part 2)
Yucatan is in itself is a fascinating place to have a discussion regarding culture. Remains of some of the most advanced civilisations can be found there […] Despite the rich history, the towns I spent time in didn’t exist 50 years ago. This is to say that Yucatan is not a place where what I know and think of the Mexican culture actually started. It is one large tourist scam with ancient ruins peppered around for good measure.
Mexico journal: Xcaret (part 1)
Tamy’s dad said that it’s the only piece of culture along the cost aside from the Mayan ruins, and I think that is exactly what Xcaret is - rather than (or maybe better said, in addition to) being a way to extract money from tourists, it a platform for cultural conservation of all regions of Mexico.
Quarantine coffee #3 - Electric Coffee Company
Electric Coffee Company are genuinely cool, farm-to-cup small producers, trying to make it in London’s rough and ever-growing competition. All of that whilst ethically sourcing all of their coffee and building a small community of coffee lovers in Ealing.
Quarantine coffee #2 - Assembly Coffee Roasters
Here is (with much delay) the second round of quarantine coffee - a series of posts where I explore my experiences with different coffee roasters around London. I comment on their ordering process (damn quarantine), flavours of the coffees, or any grievances or particularities regarding said coffee and/or the roaster. My goal this quarantine was to explore as many coffee roasters as I possibly could to both try different things and support the local economy as much as I can. Having said that, I’m in no way a coffee expert nor am I invested in speciality coffee so take what you read here with a grain of salt :)