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by marty mora I do not collect cameras. Well…at least not because they are rare or special. To be honest, I have been different type of collector, one who collects in numbers of cameras. In my prime as a number collector, I had in my possession two medium format cameras along with two different Leica […]
“What’s in your bag?” It’s been a while since someone asked me this. Maybe I’m not as popular as I used to be, ha. Maybe travel is non-existent so no one cares. Probably a bit of both. Let me start with a bit of a confession. I am a bit of a bag whore. I […]
Introduction This week has been one of the weirder ones in recent memory. It started out with a text message from one boss saying that we were going to take a week off because of the concerns related to the Corona virus. About 15 minutes later, I received another message from the education department saying […]
So much for diligence. I tried, I really did. Tried to post often. Tried to shoot often. Then this happened. One of my closest friends Nick came from California to hang out. For a month or two. Then this. My mom came for a couple weeks herself. Then my brother and his girlfriend. Then another […]
Let me start by saying this is a complete and utter ripoff of one of my favourite blog posts by one of my favourite photography bloggers, Blake Andrews. Catch his original Camera as Artifact post with his Leica M6 (Post here). Let’s get started on my homage: The camera in question is the Bessa-R. Most […]
So, this year has been a busy one! Tons of things to do and very little time. Compared to the past couple of years I am constantly back and forth to Seoul, juggling three jobs, and taking care of our “babies.” That brings me to a point I kinda thought was interesting today. My friends […]
It isn’t often I get through two rolls of film in a couple of weeks. Normally I shoot about two rolls a month. Why am I shooting so much? It’s complicated. I guess the first reason is travel. I shoot a lot when I am going somewhere. I shoot photos in the same time that […]
If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll probably know I’m a sucker for compact cameras. Many of you probably found me because of a compact camera of some sort. In fact, for my general street photography I have always preferred compact cameras. I haven’t used many lately, but the above generally holds true. So […]
This was the first frame I took this year. My cat sits on the air purifier while I sit at my desk. I guess she likes the fan. We should have called her Marilyn. The light from the window to her left was particularly strong. I’m happy I got a full frame from this considering […]
Been a while again. I know I said I was going to try and blog more. I think I say that at some point during every post. Reality is, things are always so busy that I rarely have a chance to do anything aside from eat and sleep, ha. So, consider this an update on […]
So, this is my bag for the @24hourproject this year. I’ll leave work tonight and head for the port/beach city of Busan. The cameras I’ve decided to take are the original Fujifilm X100, the Leica T (with 50mm Summilux v2), and my phone. I’ll use the Fuji for street, the Leica for portraits, and the phone if […]
So I’ve done the 24 Hour Project for four years in a row. It is a difficult thing to do, in fact, sometimes it outright sucks. I don’t know why I keep doing it. Well, I guess I kind of do. The memories. I do the project selfishly. Even though it is always a struggle […]
I’ve got some good news and some bad news about this ‘review.’ The bad news first. I’d been waiting to do this review because I didn’t have any photos. Literally, I didn’t have any time since I promised this review to even take photos. Not even a spare hour to walk around. Feck. My days […]
Okay, a slight follow up to yesterday’s “pre-review” of the Pen-f. One thing I wanted to ask people is if they want to see some of the OM-D EM-1 in the review. I know, it isn’t the newest version, but to be honest this is the camera I use most for “serious” work. I know […]
So, I’m gonna start by saying this is not a review. The review is still in progress. My thoughts about the Pen-F are actually pretty well concluded. I know how I feel about it in use. I know how I feel about it with the 17mm Olympus lens and I know how I feel about […]
I was surprised by the overwhelming response to my first blog post in a while earlier today. Because of some things happening lately, I should have a little bit more time to blog in the months to come. I am going to try really hard to blog at least once a week. That is my […]
Winter is here. I know I’m behind on blog posts. Feels like I can never catch up. I am in the middle of renovating my house here in Iksan. Last week, the snows came. Winter had been nothing more than a cold autumn until now. I like the snow. Being a teacher, when the snow […]
It’s been a strange couple of weeks. Things that seem big rungs on life’s ladder all kind of happened at once. I guess that is how life works. Christmas also happened. I took this photo on Christmas morning. My navigation took me off the highway and I saw these birds. This is one of those […]
So it all started with a conversation. A simple conversation. Myself and Nick were having a beer and talking about cameras. We did that a lot. He asked where my M3 was. You see, I had sold it. I bought it because it was cheap and I was poor. I bought it because it was […]
There is this wall. It isn’t a particularly interesting wall. In fact, it is a very normal one. That being said, I think it is my favourite wall. It is kind of beige or off-white. The wallpaper is fairly typical for Korea. I can’t remember the first photo I took against it. I think it […]
Well, this should come as a surprise. I’ve been shooting with a Ricoh GRII again. Yup, again (well only like ten photos so far, ha). My blog post- Why I Always End Up With Ricoh – is especially pertinent at these kind of moments. The story goes something like this: I had a GRII at […]
This is a post about nothing in particular, I promise. It isn’t about anything that has been talked about a thousand times and it certainly isn’t going to be about comparing anything. Definitely not. It is just a post about some photos I took on a day trip to Gunsan. I had planned on going […]
I haven’t been here for a while. Truth be told I have been super busy of late. In June and July I hosted friends for nearly both months. I taught two workshops in July with Wearethestreet and Leica Korea. Needless to say, it has been a wild ride. The whole thing started with Matt. Matt […]
So, it’s been some time since I’ve talked about this camera. I credit this camera with being the camera that actually taught me what photography really was. It wasn’t the Leica M9 or Leica M8 I had before this. Wasn’t the M6 or the M3. It was this, the Sony DSC-W100. You may be thinking, […]
Hello everyone! Wearethestreet is happy to announce our inaugural workshop and exhibition held in concert with Leica Camera Korea in Seoul! The workshop is hosted by Leica Camera Korea and is sponsored in part by Lucida Straps. Exhibition Details: The exhibition will be held at Leica Camera Korea in the Gangnam district of Seoul. The […]
The summer is almost here. It’s already hot. It’s even getting humid. I don’t love summers in Korea, never have. Lots of things going on this summer though. So far, I’ve spent some time traveling nearby cities. Places I hadn’t yet gone. It is strange to me how even within an hour from where I […]
There are several things photographers usually struggle with. Gear is usually the first. People struggle with what camera to use and when. Recently, some people have asked me to talk about gear that ISN’T a camera. So, in the next couple blog posts I’ll talk a little about the other photography gear struggles… The strap […]
April 1st was the date of the 24 hour project this year. For those of you that don’t know what it is, it is an Instagram initiative where photographers from all around the world post one photo per hour for 24 hours in their given city. It is the third time I’ve done the project, […]
So, it has been about a month since I have been using film almost full time. It is an interesting experience. I mean, I shot film for years but somehow it makes a lot more sense to me this time. Maybe it is because I’ve gotten older or more patient. Maybe I am just learning […]
I wrote a little about this in my last post. After some careful thought I decided to shoot a lot more film this year. Almost exclusively, actually. It isn’t something that is easy to do but, something I feel is necessary. The first obvious question is why. Well, it isn’t easy to answer this either. […]
The hardest part of photography for me is processing. The part that pisses me off the most is processing. Basically the only thing that annoys me is processing. I fucking HATE processing. Why? Well, there are too many options. My mind changes too often. I hate being in front of a computer, yet, spend half […]
So, I just wrote about the Fujifilm X-Pro 2. It is a nice enough camera. I used it over the past six months. The fact of the matter is though, I never felt much of a connection to that camera. It worked just fine, but it never made me want to take photos. It was […]
Okay, so I promised this like three weeks ago. As many of you may have started to figure out, I’m a lazy blogger. I mean, I always was but now I have enough people following that I get called out for it, ha. Deservedly so 😉 That being said, here I am! Colour time. Yes, […]
Chuseok here in Korea. It is kind of like Thanksgiving for those of you who aren’t up on your Korean culture. Sitting in a coffee shop it feels a bit weird. I used to hear how Chuseok is a family holiday but it seems like all the families are here in this cafe, ha. I […]
So, this will probably be one of the longer posts I’ve done. If you’re not in the mood for a bit of a read maybe it is time to check out 😉 Also, to the people that have been around my blog for a long time this will probably be an annoying post. It will […]
Been quite a while since I’ve posted! Unfortunately this isn’t much more than a bit of an update. The summer is terrible here in Korea. Way too hot.. Also, I have been in the process of moving so it has been hard to post. Recently, I broke down and purchased the iPhone SE. When I […]
I don’t know when I suddenly turned into a “reviewer” of cameras. I guess it isn’t really much about the cameras. I’ve for the most part stopped buying cameras. New cameras, anyway. Cameras sort of find their way to me. Cameras of all different types. Let me start by saying this: I have stopped paying […]
“In your opinion, what is the best digital camera ever made? I mean, if you could only have one camera what would it be?” “The Ricoh GRD4.” “You mean the new one? The large sensor one? I think that is the GR..” “No. I mean the Ricoh GRD4.” An excerpt from an interview I did […]
It is a holiday in Korea this weekend. For me, it means a five day holiday. In the past I might have flown to Japan or Hong Kong but lately I prefer to stay closer to home. A couple of months ago I moved back to Iksan, the small town I originally came to when […]
As a continuation of the rather strange last month for my blog I’ve decided to do another “review.” I put that in quotations because I don’t think I really know how to do a proper review. This will be more like my thoughts on a camera I’ve used off and on for a while: The […]
So, this isn’t something I do very often. A review from me is rare enough but a review of an accessory even more so. Just as a bit of a disclaimer, Eric Kim and I have been close friends for years and he gave me this strap as a Christmas present. That being said, […]
In a hotel room in Seoul. Staying in a hotel makes me feel like I’m doing something. I sort of enjoy it. I don’t usually take this kinda photo. Felt like a memory I wanted to be in. 2015 has come and gone. It was a mostly up and sometimes down year. I enjoyed most […]
I suppose I should start by saying merry Christmas. I almost forgot it was Christmas (not really) being here in Korea. Probably partly to do with the fact I worked until 10 PM yesterday. You may or may not know this about me, but I’m a teacher. Like many foreigners here in Korea I teach, […]
A lot of things can happen in a week. A lot of things did happen. A week from writing my post on mobile photography I find myself ironically with no camera but my phone. A long story short, Ricoh wanted to charge me $700 to fix a camera that costs less than that new. I’m […]
So I said I was done with gear posts during the last post. I guess I kind of lied. The one camera I hadn’t talked about yet was probably the one I use the most. My phone. The mobile phone has been the camera I’ve used the most over the past 5 or so years. […]
I’m going to do something today I don’t usually do anymore. I’m going to talk a little about a camera. It is pretty ironic that I planned on talking about the Ricoh GR on this blog post and today it decided to have a problem with its lens mechanism. More on that later. I don’t […]
Thursday morning was pretty foggy. Probably the most fog I’ve seen in Korea. Granted it was 6 AM. Maybe my brain was a little foggy. On my way to the golf course this was pretty much the scene out my window. Not ideal. Glad I could take a photo of it with my phone. Phones […]
The end of a long weekend. I used to travel on weekends like this. I would go to Tokyo or Hong Kong. Now, I prefer to stay nearer home. Funny that. I’m not sure I enjoy staying close. I stayed in a hotel last night just to feel like I was doing something. Just to […]
I haven’t written for a while. I would like to say the main reason is that I’ve been moving and having had any time. While the fact of that is true, it isn’t the real reason for not having made a new post. As many of you know, or could see here, I had been […]
A month or so ago, I wrote a long post talking about a Sony digital compact camera I had that died. I wrote about how much I loved that camera. Wrote about how it taught me more about photography than almost any camera I had every used. I talked about how it cured me of […]
This may seem a repost. Might seem a bit of dejavu. It feels that way for me too. You know when you pull off a band aid or jump into a cold pool? Better to do it in one shot. It hurts less. This brings me to the death of a friend: my Sony DSC-W100. […]
I don’t feel inspired much lately. I don’t take my camera with me very often, don’t take photos often even if I do. I don’t get a chance to travel much. This weekend though, the arrival of a friend from Toronto gave me the excuse to head into Busan.
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