I have been itching to get out to shoot something these days but the weather has been less than great. With the unusual amount of snow that we had here in Ulsan, it left the skies grey and boring. Worse was now most of the snow has left leaving a dead muddy landscape. With my new camera taunting me I had to get out.
The idea that I had was to capture the snow on the etched rocks as Jakgwaecheon. Sadly as I stated before, the snow was all gone. The skies were grey and uninteresting. So what was I going to do after driving all the way out there? I decided to take shots that fit the mood. For me that meant black and white shots with lots of contract.
Remember, as a photographer you don’t have to just record the moment but create it. Not sure who said that but I like it. I wanted to create a scene that focussed on the contrasts. I wanted to make an image that didn’t need interesting skies or bright colours but focussed on more of the textures in the scene.
Later on the snow on the mountains caught my eye and I decided to head down the road to see what Sinbulsan looked like from the trailhead. After a wrong turn that lead up to the Amethyst Caves, I found the right road and soon was surrounded by love motels. The strange part was many were left to rust and I had trouble distinguishing how many were actually open or at least operational to some extent.
The trailhead was a bit of a bust that late in the day and I decided to take a look around the city of motels. It was an eery feeling as the only living creatures that I saw around were a few workers and a dog chained to a random tree. You could have totally filmed a scene from the walking dead here. I was looking for a spot to get up high to try and shoot the mountains. I found the “Rainbow Motel” that had been gutted from the rear entrance. I managed to get up to the roof and get some shots. I left a short while later with that eery feeling still in my guts. It was interesting to poke around but sort of sad to see this area go to waste like this.
