Wife got me a new camera—a Canon PowerShot SD700, to be exact—so I strolled around Sungnyemun Gate (i.e. Namdaemun) after work to see if the image stabilization feature helped any with the night shots. The results would seem to suggest it does.
Sungnyemun at night is something of an iconic shot—perhaps no image captures the harmony of ancient and modern Korea better.
The following shot, of course, is not Sungnyemun Gate, but rather the newly restored main branch of the Shinsegae Department Store. Opened in 1930 as the Keijo (Seoul) branch of the Mitsukoshi Department Store, the Shinsegae Department Store is the last of Seoul’s big colonial-era department stores still in existence. The area around the department store is one of my favorite in Seoul, with the department store itself, the old Bank of Korea building and the underappreciated (IMHO) old headquarters of the Korea 1st Bank forming a virtual museum of Seoul’s early modern architecture.
Hope you enjoyed ‘em.
20 Comments
Nice photos!
Here’s a contemporary photo of the Mitsukoshi Dept. store. The view in that area used to be even nicer when the old post office still stood (I believe it was destroyed during the war). This photo is small, but is taken from the top of the Mitsukoshi department store, showing the Bank of Korea on the left and the post office on the right.
Great pics.
I use the same camera. You almost have to try to take a bad picture with one of these.
If you’re after natural light, go for a Nikon, but I prefer the crisp colours of the Canon SD/IXUS series cameras(all of which are great cameras, by the way). Given the subdued natural light in Korea, it’s probably a more fitting choice, which is why the Canons are the only cameras I recommend to anyone who asks).
Great photos. I can never get enough of your architectural shots, dude. Sometimes, it seems like it’s the only thing that redeems this blog. (Sorry, but you know what I mean!)
“…the harmony of ancient and modern Korea….”
Man, you could get a job writing ad copy for KNTO!
Speaking of old department stores, the dominant one (at least as far as the cityscape is concerned) must have been Hwashin, which was on the northeast corner of Jongno 4-geori (Jongno and Namdaemun-no) where Jongno Tower stands today, across from the Jonggak belfry. There’s a photo of it from Sept 1945 here. A replica of it stands in Fantastic Studio in Bucheon today, where a lot of 20th-century period dramas are shot. This was the major intersection in town during the Joseon Dynasty (Taepyeongno was put through from Sejongno to Namdaemun by the Japanese, so didn’t exist as the major north-south thoroughfare at that time) and, as indicated by the photos, was also a major streetcar junction.
I’m a camera noob and am very interested in how you got such bright night-time shots without a long exposure time. If I tried to take the same shot, I’d have to use at least .8 secs exposure even at the widest aperture setting, resulting in a lot of motion blur in the foreground….
Sambek,
I swear, it’s the camera. I you use the right preset, you’ll get amazing shots. Just get a Canon SD/IXUS. You won’t regret it.
Sewing—the great thing about the Hwashin—and the main reason its demolition in 1990 was such a shame—was that unlike the other department stores, the Hwashin was founded by a Korean capitalist (a Korean who, after Liberation, was the first person arrested for colonial-era collaboration, but a Korean none the less) and designed by a Korean architect.
Sambex_ZX—Ditto what SomeguyinKorea said. It’s the camera—you have to try to take bad photos.
Shinsegae’s set to reopen that building on about the 28th. I took a walk by there yesterday, and they’ve really done an awesome job resotring the exterior. I can’t wait to check out what it looks like inside.
Mr. Koehler, can you elaborate please on why Hwashin’s founder got persecuted, when so many others were, uh, actually placed into situations of prominence?
Just curious why some got the axe.
Thank you
Robert,
As always, great photos. As far as the camera, I don’t know a lot about it - I own a Canon Powershot A80 (which I love) and a Canon EOS 350D (which I’m still learning). Same with my Powershot A80 - it’s almost impossible to take a bad picture.
wjk—Couldn’t tell you why the 반민특위 was gunning so badly for Park Heung-sik, the founder of Hwashin, while other got a pass. Here’s the bio on Park at Naver.com’s encyclopedia—as you can see, it seems he was pretty open about collaborating with the Chongdokbu. This certainly doesn’t look good, after all:
Of course, you could probably argue that others did just as bad if not worse but stayed out of the slammer. If I had to guess, though, the fact that he was so prominent a figure probably didn’t help. I also have to wonder—and this is just me wondering out loud—whether the fact that he was born into a peasant family also played a factor, i.e., traditional landed elites who went into finance and manufacturing felt the uppity peasant didn’t have a “right” to get rich, especially through something like retail.
thank you, Mr. Koehler.
Personally, I agree with you. His lack of a yangban background may have played a big factor. That’s what I think. Thank you once again
IOKIYAY: It’s okay if you’re a Yangban
Superb!!
Ah! I use to enjoyed a 100won “자판기 커피” at the cafeteria on top of the Shinsegae while looking at the BOK building, the tip of Namsan or the alley to MyungDong.
If I remember correctly, Hwashin Dept. building had a very narrow stairway compare to Shinsegae’s wide marble stairway.
Many thanks for great pictures, Robert!
Very nice shots–I was trying to set up for one like it at namdaemun with my tripod one night a couple years ago when a couple of drunk guys came and started kicking a man sleeping on the ground several meters in front of my tripod. When they saw me pointing my camera directly at them, they started running after me. I barely managed to get out of there with my gear, and never did get the shot.
Great shots–makes me want to take my Nikon out at night. See if you can get the same results shooting neon signs just for the heck of it.
A little trick for reducing blur is to use the autotimer to take your shots, instead of pushing the shutter button. My Sony has a slow 10 second and a quick 2 second autotimer. I use the two second timer for most low-light or high speed shots to reduce blur.
It takes away the jitter introduced by pushing the shutter button (or recovering from pushing the shutter button). The Sony also has a lot of the same special settings for night shots, etc, but the automatic timer helps a lot. I also use it almost every time for portraits.
Great shots by the way.
Yes, intersting intersection. I’m certain the guy who designed the new Post Office stole my design from one of my projects at school in 1987. I’ve been trying to find out who designed it.
Just testing…can’t seem to get my new Gravatar to display properly. (Everyone else’s shows up okay, though, among those who have Gravatars.)
This gate got burned down last night
a homeless guy set a fire inside of that gate.
many sorrowful koreans are mourning because the number one national treasure is gone now
here is the picture..
http://news.naver.com/main/rea.....4&iid=
I hope the government rebuilds that gate as soon as possible
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[...] Next to Korea First Bank, of course, is the newly restored landmark headquarters of the Shinsegae Department Store (formerly the Mitsukoshi Department Store), which I described here. [...]