18 COMMUNITY
In focus:
Things
to avoid
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hotoclub — Ed.
By Aaron Raisey
When we are out there with a
camera, we are always looking
for good photographic opportu-
nities, interesting subjects, nice
light, things that are different,
or things to look at differently.
In other words, we are looking
for the right things to do to
make a better picture.
This is great, but what about the
things we shouldn’t do? What are a
few simple things we can avoid do-
ing, or including in our pictures to
help us create better images?
Avoid ‘kissing’ edges. Kissing?
What I mean are strong edges
in the picture that just touch.
For example, the edge of your
subject’s head and the roofline of
a background building, or the
point of a temple’s eaves and the
trunk of a tree. Try to put space
between strong edges such as
these in your image.
Don’t have things sticking out
of someone’s head. Have you
ever taken a great photo and
later found that your girlfriend
has a flagpole sticking out the
top of her head like some kind of
W e often want
pictures to have
context, but try
to resist ‘nailing
everything’ in one
photograph.
antennae? It can look amusing,
but unfortunately can also ruin
an otherwise excellent image.
Try and compose the image or
place the subject somewhere
that avoids this picture-killer.
This is extremely important
when taking a photograph that
has a dynamic background such
as traffic or pedestrians. It’s bad
enough with a flagpole out her
head, but you don’t want some-
one walking into her ear as well.
Don’t try to get everything into
the photo. We often want pictures
to have context, especially with hol-
iday snaps, but try to resist “nailing
everything” in one photograph. You
don’t want a bunch of Where’s
Waldo pics to show the folks back
home. Rather, take several photos
from different points of view, giving
each a clear subject. Also, work on
separating that subject from the
background through the use of dis-
tance or a larger aperture.
So, what can we do to avoid
these things? It’s easy in theory
— pay attention to the entire im-
age when looking through the
viewfinder. In practice though,
it’s a little more difficult than
that. We tend to see only what we
are focused on because our brains
filter out those things we aren’t
immediately concerned with.
So when we are taking a picture
of our partner or friend, we usually
see only them and not the details in
the background. The camera how-
ever, is impartial — it sees every-
thing equally. This is why we all get
that “Hey, I didn’t notice that when
I took the picture!” feeling at times.
Try and avoid that feeling by
remembering to take note of
what’s going on around and be-
hind your subject. Are there peo-
ple moving around back there?
Are there any inconvenient pow-
er cables, poles or trees? Do I
have enough space around my
subject? Often the solution can be
as simple as raising or lowering
your point of view a few centime-
ters, or moving a few paces to the
left or right, forward or back.
It requires an effort initially,
but soon the ability to avoid
these things will become a nat-
ural part of your photography.
Check out how the best expat
photographers in Korea do it at
the Seoul Photo Club on Flickr.
(raisey@hanmail.net)
Expat Living is a section dedicated to the daily
living of expatriates.
It is printed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
To share stories about your life abroad, send stories
or story ideas to Matthew Lamers at
mattlamers@heraldm.com
Submissions may be edited for length or clarity.
PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER — In Beophwan Harbour, Jeju-do, a woman dries her collected sea vegetables on July 18th.
PHOTO CHALLENGE WINNER — A woman waits for the bus in Eunhaeng Sageori, Seoul.
How to track down your lost items
By Yoo Jeong-jin
If you are living in a foreign
country and lose something
while using public transporta-
tion, not only do you face basic
language barriers but you also
must deal with societal differ-
ences. In the end, there are
doubtlessly many foreigners
who come to Korea either to live
or for travel, lose their belongs
and, out of sheer confusion or
frustration, simply decide that
trying to track them down is
just too difficult. Here is some
information to help in the event
that this should happen to you.
There are three basic forms of
public transportation: subway,
bus and taxi. By far, the subway
is the form of public transporta-
tion most used by visitors to the
city, thus lost and found infor-
mation is widely available. As
such, the system for tracking
down lost items is quite exten-
sive compared to other forms of
public transportation.
In order to speed up the
process of finding your belong-
ings, if you realize that you have
left something on the subway
relatively soon after you have
gotten off, note the time you got
off, the direction of the train and
the car number of the train in
which you were (the car/door
number can be found at the foot
of each entrance to the train,
where the arrows are marked
on the floor). Take this informa-
SeoulPodcast, sponsored by
tion to the nearest station atten-
dant and there should be a high-
er chance that you will recover
your belongings. If you only re-
alize that you have left some-
thing on the subway well after
leaving, you will have to contact
a lost and found center.
As there are currently eight
subway lines spanning hun-
dreds of stations, finding items
lost on the subway varies ac-
cording to what line one was
traveling on. This is because
lines 1-4 of the subway system
are run by Seoul Metro, where-
as lines 5-8 are run by the Seoul
Metropolitan Rapid Transit
Corporation. Also, given the
sheer immensity of the Seoul
subway system, each corpora-
tion has multiple lost and found
centers. For example, as lines 1
and 2 are extremely high-traffic
lines, and City Hall Station is
one station where these two
lines meet, the lost and found
center located there is one of the
main centers. One point of pos-
sible confusion to note, however,
is that the lost and found center
for lines 5 and 8, for example, is
located at Wangsimni Station,
which lies on line 5 but not 8.
Information for each of the
lost and found centers is as fol-
lows: for lines 1 and 2, City Hall
Station (02-6110-1122); for lines
3 and 4 Chungmuro Station (02-
6110-3344); for lines 5 and 8
Wangsimni Station (02-6311-
6765/6768); for lines 6 and 7
Expat Living
Taeneung Station (02-6311-
6766/7). Hours of operation for
centers run by Seoul Metro
(lines 1-4) are 7:00 am to 10:00
pm. Hours for those run by
SMRT are 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.
For lost & found issues on holi-
days, weekends and outside of
these hours, one should contact
a subway station worker. As the
Seoul Metro and SMRT both
run their own websites, noting
this information could be very
useful if you lose your belong-
ings in the future. The address-
es are
http://www.seoulmetro.co.kr
and http://www.smrt.co.kr/, re-
spectively. At these sites, avail-
able in English, you can access
all the information about the
systems, lost and found facilities
and events that happen through
these systems.
Next is the bus system. Both
the Seoul City and Gyeongi
Province bus systems offer sites
with information on lost &
found centers, however these
sites are not available in
English. By calling either the
Seoul Global Center (1688-0120,
available Monday-Friday, 9-6
p.m.) or the Korea Tourist
Information Center (1330,
available 24 hours), you can re-
ceive information and interpre-
tation services in the event that
you have left something on a
bus. If you speak Korean or
have someone to help, the Seoul
City bus system can be reached
— Not your grandfather’s internet radio show. See SeoulPodcast.com
at 02) 415-4101 and the Gyeongi
bus system at 031) 246-4210.
When reporting a lost item di-
rectly or through an interpreter
from one of the hotlines men-
tioned above, remember to note
the following information: the
line number of the bus, the di-
rection in which it was travel-
ing, and the locations and times
where you got on and off the
bus.
Finally, there are taxis.
Although taxis in Seoul are di-
vided into public and indepen-
dent taxis, even independent
taxis are registered through or-
ganizations, making searching
for lost items simpler. (Note:
With the phasing in of the
Haechi Taxi through 2014, this
will change over the next few
years.) If you happened to have
called a taxi, this would be the
simplest way to try to retrieve
something you have left behind.
If not, then the first thing to do
is figure out whether you have
taken an independent taxi or
public taxi. The way to tell the
difference is through the writing
on the outside of the cab and
through the color: Seoul and
Gyeongi public taxis are accent-
ed with blue; Seoul independent
taxis with white; Gyeongi inde-
pendent taxis with green.
Even if you did not happen to
catch the color of the cab, there
is still hope for finding your be-
longings, as the taxi system it-
self has a site for lost items. You
WEDNESDAY JULY 22, 2009
Mario Taradan
Dave Heidloff
can find information by going to
http://www.spta.or.kr/ or calling
02) 415-9521 for independent
taxis or http://hdtaxi.com.ne.kr/
for independent and public
taxis. At these sites you can reg-
ister lost items or search
through registered found items.
Unfortunately, as with the bus
service, the site is not available
in English, so if you do not
speak Korean, you will need
help. Of course, the best way to
prevent permanent loss of your
belongings when traveling by
taxi is to always ask for a re-
ceipt, which contains the taxi
number and a phone number to
contact.
Although it cannot be said
how many people leave belong-
ings behind when taking public
transportation, approximately
74 found items are reported at
subway lost and found centers
daily. Of these, approximately
70 percent are returned to their
owners and, according to a 2008
report, this rate is increasing.
Knowing how to search for
items lost in either the subway,
bus or in a taxi can save a lot of
stress.
Of course, in the event that
you lose something on a mode of
public transportation you may
not remember all of this infor-
mation off-hand. For a refresh-
er, or for any other information,
call the SGC for help at 1688-
0120.
(dykas@sba.seoul.kr)
Enjoy
summer
for free
By Ryu Myung-soo
With warm weather and a
steadily increasing number of
people spending time at outdoor
public facilities, there is increas-
ing interest in open-air activi-
ties.
What’s best about the season,
however, is that many of these
events are available free of
charge.
The Seoul City Hall Plaza —
in the summer a grassy field, in
the winter an ice skating rink —
has come over the years to be at
the forefront of many of Seoul’s
cultural activities. From May 16
through Oct. 10 of this year,
there will be a permanent stage
on the plaza offering perfor-
mances free of charge every
evening at 7:30 p.m. for an hour
and a half.
Performances will display
dances such as ballet, tango,
jazz and salsa as well as music
performances in genres such as
hip hop and rock. The specific
calendar of events is available
at www.caps.or.kr. But as the
site is only available in Korean,
you can call the Seoul Global
Center at 1688-0120 for more
information.
If you’re not satisfied with
staying in one place, how about
joining a free tour group?
The Gangnam District Office
offers a free city tour bus for ex-
pats that runs every Tuesday
and Friday from COEX.
Beginning at 9:30 a.m. the
course travels from a set of roy-
al tombs to “E-Government,
Gallery in Aisle,” to a taekwon-
do performance and experience
T he National
Folk Museum is
visited by over 2
million people
per year,and is a
space where visi-
tors can catch a
glimpse of the
history of tradi-
tional everyday
life in Korea.
and then finally Bongeun
Temple, before returning to
COEX at 12:30.
From 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. is
another tour bus, traveling
from COEX to the Korean
Cultural Heritage Foundation
to watch a performance, then to
Rodeo Drive in Apgujeong, and
to the Kimchi Museum back at
COEX. This tour usually costs
10,000 won, but is currently be-
ing offered free of charge. For
more information and to re-
serve a place, call (02) 318-
0345.
The National Folk Museum is
visited by over 2 million people
per year, and is a space where
visitors can catch a glimpse of
the history of traditional every-
day life in Korea. Every
Saturday at 3 p.m. the museum
offers free performances featur-
ing traditional Korean music
and dance in its main lecture
hall.
Every Sunday at 2 p.m. in the
front courtyard of the museum
the Folk Stage holds perfor-
mances. Also, in celebration of
the 100th anniversary of the
first national Korean museum,
admission to all national muse-
ums, including the National
Folk Museum, is free through
the end of the year. For more in-
formation you can check out the
museum’s website at
www.nfm.go.kr or call (02) 3704-
3114.
Finally, at the National
Theater from now until
September there will be a week-
ly event held on Saturdays at 6
p.m. called the Saturday
Culture Plaza. The stage will
feature performances varying
from ballet to rock music to the
Seoul Pops Orchestra. More in-
formation about each week’s
events is available at
www.ntok.go.kr or by calling
(02) 2280-4115.
For more information about
summer events in the city —
events held for free or otherwise
— call the tourism information
desk at the SGC on (02) 2075-
4120. For more information on
life in Seoul in general, call our
hotline at 1688-0120.
(sooryu@i-net.or.kr)