[2023] Sending Off the Year of Gyemyo

Dawn fire-watching | 230mm ISO40 F4.9 1s

Morning glow | 230mm ISO40 F4.9 1/2700s

Morning street | 230mm ISO40 F4.9 1/120s

When I went to the waffle place with friends | 69mm ISO50 F2.4 1/60s

Forsythia | 230mm ISO100 F4.9 1/60s

Jeju coastline | 230mm ISO40 F4.9 1/220s

Bored while eating fries | 69mm ISO250 F2.4 1/30s

Sheep farm next to school | 230mm ISO64 F4.9 1/120s

Waiting for subway | 69mm ISO40 F2.4 1/140s

Gym friend took me to | 69mm ISO400 F2.4 1/30s

Day when clouds were exceptionally pretty | 69mm ISO40 F2.4 1/4500s

Waiting for bus | 69mm ISO40 F2.4 1/45s

In a deserted alley | 69mm ISO50 F2.4 1/120s

Briefly while crossing the bridge | 69mm ISO40 F2.4 1/244s

Very autumnal | 23mm ISO50 F1.8 1/8s

On the way up to friend’s studio | 69mm ISO50 F2.4 1/2s

Eulwangri coastline | 23mm ISO12 F1.8 1/250s

While others grill meat, I take photos | 69mm ISO125 F2.4 1/60s

Eulwangri night sky | 23mm ISO400 F1.8 7.7s

Old elementary school after 10 years | 69mm ISO40 F2.4 1/200s

View from friend’s place | 230mm ISO50 F4.9 1/60s

Some days are yellow | 230mm ISO40 F4.9 1/120s

Must shoot quickly before sunset | 230mm ISO50 F2.9 1/1000s

If last year was an initiation period, this year felt like a growth period. I took the photos I wanted, took photos of others, and tried different concepts for each photo — some from far away, some from close up, some emphasizing complementary color contrast, some with long exposure, or even leaving them entirely in black and white. Watching photos transform at my fingertips was fascinating every time, and especially from when I started touching color grading and tone curves, I genuinely enjoyed the process of giving photos a transformation.

This year saw the following changes. First, reading posts like “photography is ultimately capturing the landscape the photographer saw with their own eyes, and a photo is the landscape the photographer found impressive” on this Naver blog became a starting point for developing my personal photography philosophy. Second, I became fascinated with image sensors as a semiconductor product category, and searched through papers, blogs of PhD students and graduates, tech insights, etc. like crazy for related knowledge. Honestly, I couldn’t fully understand it without the background knowledge, but the impression that many engineers’ efforts are needed came across well.

Thinking that the reason I started photo editing was to preserve the same memories more beautifully, the initial goal seems to have been largely met. Thanks to that, I could intentionally make even the same place feel different, which was nice. However, the attitude of taking every photo seriously started to feel a bit tiring, so I’m trying to let go of that obsession going forward.