How did you get into coffee?

This photo below from Korea reminds me of when I first started to drink coffee. It was a long cold winter there, and I was staying in a place that was over a garage. South Korea in the winter is cold. Super-cold! And this place I was staying never got warm…

In the mornings, I wanted something warm to drink other than tea or hot chocolate. I hated coffee. Super-hated it! So I decided to do an experiment on myself and see if I could take something I hated and turn it into something that I loved. The rational side of my brain knew I was surrounded by perfectly rational people that liked coffee, so the problem must have been with me. Anyway, the experiment worked and now I love coffee.

If you like coffee, how did you get into it?

Daily Photo – What’s on TV

Every Asian megalopolis (like Seoul here) has neo-modern buildings with neo-industrial modern art. They are great subjects for photography, and security never seems to have a problem with tripods. I never see anyone inside taking photos, because these are mostly filled with businessmen. But, if you’re out on the street, you owe it to yourself just to pop into random office buildings to check out the lobbies – you never know what you will find!

Seoul is one of those cities that keeps going in every direction to the horizon. Those mountains in the distance are really really far away, and it’s non-stop activity between here and there. I’ve always wanted to try taking the subway to the end, but never quite had the opportunity to do so. But, while there, I did get to know the subway system pretty well.

I was amazed at how the girls on the subways would take non-stop photos of themselves with their mobile phones. They would look at themselves, make a few adjustments, show their friends, then do it again and again. You don’t see that here in the states… (yet!)

I believe (the smart readers here will correct me if I’m wrong) that this is facing north. Seoul is right on the border of North Korea, so it’s just a short distance to the edge. In fact, it’s so short that they occasionally find tunnels that come up near the outskirts of Seoul as people are digging their way out. Crazy.

This photo is a little deceptive in that it shows less than one quarter of the city. I took it from about the center of the city in the World Trade building and just went towards the pie-piece of the city that had the sunset.

This shot was taken close to sunset, and everything was perfect to grab some sharp colors along with the brake lights of long exposures.

Over the weekend we hung pictures up at the gallery. Everything looks pretty sharp and those of you are coming to the gallery opening should see something a bit different, perhaps. I don’t know… impossible to be objective, but I do know it is different than what is usually shown there at Halcyon.

I’ll be showing about 45 pieces. Here is a sampling of the ones at the show. You will notice the first three are exceptionally pointy.
Dark Storm over Vancouver:

Intricate:

Spires of God:

Farewell Holland:

Fourth on Lake Austin:

This is Nathaniel:

Rush Hour in Seoul:

One Night in Bangkok:

Here is Seoul at sunset – check out the U-Turn trails on the large version.

Here is an HDR shot of the COEX area of Seoul taken around dusk.

Seoul’s traffic is just about as bad as all major Asian cities, but when looked at from this vantage, it looks almost poetic.

I am leaving Seoul after a busy week here. I stopped at the top of the World Trade Tower after work yesterday to grab this HDR shot, which turned out pretty slick and Blade-Runneresque. If you click on it, then All Sizes, you can see it larger, which looks much better.

Seoul was rather cold, but clear yesterday, so after lunch I stopped at the World Trade Tower to take this shot: