blog
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 […]
Well, it’s almost Christmas. 2020 has been one helluva year. Not much has been constant for me in 2020 aside from the struggle that is far from mine alone. I feel like I’ve been through it all this year. Started a business destined to fail, lost one of the most important people in my life, […]
Thirty-four of forty days it rained. And not just intermittently. Taking my wife to a test last Saturday water was halfway up the tires of my car and people were treating it as if it were any other day. As if 2020 hadn’t been enough. Sandbags in front of department stores. Rain affects people in […]
First of all, I want to start by thanking those who bought my new zine, Tokyo: 1 Day, 2 Nights. I’m really thankful and super happy to hear how much everyone enjoys it with its new, larger format. It was a difficult decision to make it bigger, because of course that means it also had […]
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, 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 […]
So finally, after much ado, my first attempt at a vlog is live on my new YouTube channel 😉 It isn’t much, but it is a start. In this post, I’ll go over a bit of the process I went through making this first (obviously not great) video. There isn’t actually that much to talk […]
Roll 4. It was a wild ride, this one. Well, kinda. My wife, her friend, and I decided to go to Jeonju’s Hanook Village to shoot a video and take some photos. My wife’s friend has basically become my videographer. She’s been great. If I were a little less lazy about the editing part we’d […]
Already finished with my third roll of the year. That, if you haven’t been following me, is quick fast for me. Normally I shoot two rolls or so a month if I’ve nothing special to shoot. Why? Well, not super easy to answer that. I think the main reason is my excitement to be committed […]
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 […]
5 This is a photo of my mom. My mom came to Korea for the first time in 2018. I cherished that time with her. We didn’t have a great relationship when I was young. She’s a bit like Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. Tons of heart but extremely strict and can be borderline scary. […]
10 So, here goes. My top ten photos of 2018. Well, in fact this post will just go through 6-10 in reverse order. Above is number 10. Admittedly this year was slim pickings for street photography. I quite literally didn’t do much of it. In February I participated in the 24 hour project in Busan. […]
So, it is 2019. How time flies. I can’t believe last year went by so quickly. Was shocking to me. Was really one of the best years in my life. That is, at least personally. It almost felt like a vacation of a year. 2019 is here and I need to buckle down and get […]
Well, it has been nearly four months since I posted something here. Every time I post I promise I will get better and posting and every time I promise that I end up getting worse. I’d like to say that it is solely because I am busy. I am busy, yet, it is mostly out […]
Hi Everyone! It’s been a while. Some new stuff to announce! As of this week I started as the Leica Akademie Ambassador in Korea. What does this mean? It means workshops, lectures, exhibitions and more! I’m really excited by what is to come. First! This Saturday, September 15th at 1:00 at the Leica Store Gangnam […]
It was my birthday yesterday. I tend to forget. They kind of just happen. I’d asked people on my Instagram in the morning what I should have for dinner. It seemed a fine enough idea. The choices were raw beef or sushi. I’d put on shorts and paint stained t-shirt to go out. Since renovating […]
I’ve been busy. Busy getting married, finishing my house. I had guests in the house until yesterday. Not much time for anything. That doesn’t even include dodging the construction dust long enough to write a post. I don’t do this often. Post in colour I mean. This is my darkroom light. My wife said she […]
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 […]
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’ve lived in Korea for a long time. Nearly 10 years in fact all told. I’ve always been aware of the big holidays – of which there are two – Seolnal and Chuseok. Weirdly though, I’d never properly experienced one until this year. The week didn’t start off so good. The weather was about as […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The green tea fields of Boseong. A popular place for Koreans to visit during the spring and summer. I went without much thought. I went without many expectations. I was somehow expecting a tranquil experience. I was expecting a feeling of calm. In fact, though, it was busy and crowded. It was full of tourists. […]
I noticed her. The park was full of tourists. The cherry blossom season in Gyeongju is a big event in Korea. The small lake had a winding path circling it. Strangely, no one walked up to the lake. She did, though. Wearing a hanbok (traditional Korean dress) like out of a dynasty far removed she […]
This place always feels weird to me. Yongsan Station is one of the largest train stations in Korea. Living in Iksan, it is the station I always arrive at. Lots of memories here. The station has changed a lot over the past 8 or so years. In a lot of ways, anyway. In a lot […]
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. […]
Yesterday, I was going through negatives I hadn’t yet scanned. The first shot on one roll was this one. I hadn’t noticed it before, because it was the only photo I took on my trip home with this camera. A Leica M5, someone had given me months before I’m not sure why this was the […]
No matter how much one plays, drinks, fucks, talks, smokes, whatever.. They end up like this. One can only count on one’s self. There’s no forever. Only, for now. The only bond one has is with one’s self. The man that is happiest is first happy with himself. The man most at peace is the […]
Better times. Always searching for something better. Miss the times you had. Look forward to the times you’re going to have. Hard to live in the present. Nights at the cages after work. Drinking. Simple things. Hard to live in the present. Never feels as sentimental as the past or as hopeful as the future. […]
People have been emailing me asking me questions about the different equipment I used to shoot the project, The Culture that recently appeared on my portfolio. I’ve decided that instead of writing the same thing over and over again in emails I would just make a short blog post outlining the equipment I used for […]
Finally, after a lot of hard work my project “The Culture” is live on my portfolio. It was a long process, and it’s bittersweet to be finished. http://www.jtwhitephotography.com/projects-the-culture Brad and his family are some of the best people I’ve ever met and I can’t thank them enough for taking me in as if I was one […]
From my one night visa run to Japan. Only time for the airport and a shopping mall. Incheon, South Korea and Narita, Japan. December 6th and 7th, 2011. All images from the Leica M9P, 35mm Summilux.
jtinseoul 