The Pen Monster Blog

I thought about fiddling about with this image to clean it up and sharpen it so it'll be both easier to see on your crappy smartphone screens, and to concede to the demand for "sharpness" in a photo.

Then I thought fuck it. It's a memory. I want it to look like a memory.

The memory;

I was pretty excited to walk away from the little Chungmuro used camera shop with my new-to-me Pentax ME camera. I went to buy it after a trip to visit a good friend saw my trusty Dimage Z stop being so trusty. He was/ is a film nut and he suggested I get a fully manual film camera. Then all I have to worry about was me. He suggested a Nikon because that was where his brand loyalty lay.

I got a Pentax because, to my mind, Pentax was the face of that sort of camera. I was on my own buying it so I didn't have anyone to explain to me about the Pentax ME. This was also before everyone had pocket internet so I couldn't look stuff up on the spot.

I grabbed some black and white film, likely Kodak, and pottered around the city. Click. Click. Click.

This one is a bit historical. Notice how the only thing between the tracks and the passengers is empty air? There are suicide barriers there now. I believe all of the stops on the network has them now. A lot of Seoul has been made over since my first visit so long ago. A lot less grime. A lot less wild. A lot less interesting to look at.

So it goes.

I love this photo.

The faces in this crowd are little clusters of story. Friends chatting. Young mom and dad. Bored tween. Granny enjoying the reactions of the little one. One person in the front pretending to not see me, one in the back letting me know that he did.

This moment will never exist ever again. I caught all of these different threads converging for one slice of time. That's why photography is cool.

As a foreigner you will always be the center of attention. No matter how cosmopolitan the place you find yourself in is, there will always be a group of locals who orbit foreigners for one reason or another. Sometimes it can be nefarious. Most often it's selfish. From sexual fetishization to the more benign hope a foreigner can provide something to fill a sense of emptiness.

I know, I've been guilty of it. That's why I'm always gracious when I'm somewhere and people act like I'm an event they want memories of.

I won't lie though. It's also why I keep to myself these days.