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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-06-2013, 07:28 PM
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Forum: Photo Critique
11-02-2013, 05:05 PM
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I was worrying that anything under 1/80 I wouldn't be able to get a sharp image. In fact this photo was badly exposed already. I boosted the exposure back up by 1.7 stops I believe in lightroom to get what you are seeing now.
1/30 sounds fine when you are out shooting normally but since I went to north korea mainly for photography and I had a large bag full of lenses in there on my shoulder so I was thinking I need that shutter speed to ensure a reasonable sharp picture. I just did not have enough time to put my bag down and take my time. Everything was such a rush.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-29-2013, 10:08 PM
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That is the korean work experience program. LOL.....
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-29-2013, 05:32 PM
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Seems like some forum members would like to see some picture of the "well known prospective" of the country so I might as well share a few more here.
_GEO2107-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Sometimes you can see long lines in bus stops and most people are sitting down to wait that tell how long they have been waiting for.
_GEO1884-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
_GEO1681-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
_GEO0901-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
This photos shows children holding some kind of tools along the railway line. Not sure what they were working on.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:58 PM
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wow.... I love all of them and I think the 4th one is the best. Do you mind showing me the original unprocessed version of that image?
Truly amazing!!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:42 PM
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There were always people cleaning the street and buildings all the time. It is impossible to find any dirty spots in the city. The tram, buses and buildings can look old and outdated but never dirty.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:35 PM
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Where was these photos taken from?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:32 PM
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:28 PM
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I accept that and it is very true that I had only spent 4 days in there. I only seen less than a very tiny bit of North Korea. I personally do not think that the current regime is the best for the vast majority of north korean people. I just wanted to point out that this is a country that is starting to change perhaps taking a very similar step as the chinese reform which started 30 years ago.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 07:13 PM
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I guess most people want to believe that they are better off than others. But hey everyone have to face different type of difficulties in life. I believe back in the 90s the North Korea did had a famine and many faced hunger but people in the west including the media refuse to accept the fact that they are doing better now since when others are doing better is not an interesting news and doesn;t support the foreign policy of the powerful nations.
If north korea is not next to China but a small nation in the middle of Africa I am sure it would have a lot less media attention. Like it or not, north korea does act as a buffer zone for China with the American backed South Korea. China doesn't want a pro US nation on its door step especially North Korea being so close to the Chinese Capital of Beijing.
Too much dirty politics behind it.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 06:37 PM
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Hi Racer,
I have to say you paid a lot of attention to detail and you are very quick to spot things.
The cost of the tour covers all the meals during our stay in north Korea 3 large bottles of bear is and 2 large bottles of water was provided with each meal. (Share between 10 people). If you would like more you can purchase with either euro or the chinese RMB. Since offically tourist do not suppose to use any local currency that makes purchasing any goods from a local store impossible however the clever way to do it is to exchange small amount of North Korean currency in China before you enter the country. And the exchange rate is extremely good I have to say. For a 4 days tour I would say exchange no more than $10 USD and that would be certainly enough the rest of the money you won't be able to exchange back to any hard currency. So keep that in mind. Since it is officially illegal to have their local currency, you do have to be careful while bringing them in from China. The boarder guards do check your bags while you enter the country. They do not check every single items but all they are looking for is if you are bringing any western propaganda materials in such as western magazine printed in korean to "brain wash" their people. (if you see what I mean). I did gave the board guard a pack of Camel cigarette and that helps a lot to speed up the process of inspection. LOL..... Once in the country just keep a low profile and you are free to spend their local money just don't be an idiot and telling everyone you are doing it while you are still in there.
Regarding about photo check before leaving the country. I was so worry about that and I was well prepared for it. I bought myself 8 16GB SD card (I shoot in RAW all the time) and try to switch them whenever I took some picture which I think they might have a problem with and hide it away. And once I got back to the hotel each evening I would download all the them to my Laptop computer as well as to 2 external hard disks as triple back ups. But to my surprise no one ever did ask me not to take any pictures anywhere even in the country side out of pyongyang and even when we leave the country they did just briefly check our bags again and that was all.
Gas stations. To be honest I only saw 2 gas stations in the country during my trip. I am not sure if those vehicles you saw on my pictures are in fact privately owned since I never seen a whole family sitting in it. Most of the time it is just the driver or perhaps another man with the driver. They do have clothes stores and what they call department stores but they are only 3 stories high the most. But the thing they sell in their did;t really interest me, they are like what people are wearing in the picture. The ladies section seems a lot bigger than the men section. From what I understand, each person has a ration card which allows them to go to the shop to pick up the ration of basic food and clothing. (that is why most men wear the same kind of clothing perhaps) After you used up all the ration then you will need to buy product with cash. Of course there are many things you are only able to buy with cash but not with the ration card since the rations are just for the basic commodities.
I would like to add a little information about mobile phones. Since January 2013 tourist are allowed to bring in their own mobile phones. But they ban all GPS enable devices. Ensure you say there is no GPS on the phone when you fill in the form while entering the country. Ensure you pre download the North korea map data on google maps before you go in since you won't be able to get any phone signals once you are in. It is super useful. Because you will more or less have some free time to wonder around and having a GPS devices with you helps a lot. You can also get the South Korean mobile signal near the boarder with South Korea and that is the best time to tag yourself on facebook there. LOL.....
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 04:31 PM
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How could you tell I used my FA31mm on some of my shots? In fact there are a few shot were shot by the FA77mm and IMO is just as good as the 31mm with less CA.
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Forum: Pentax SLR Lens Discussion
10-28-2013, 04:03 PM
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Hi, thanks for commenting on my photos of cuba. When I was in cuba I used my sigma 18-50 2.8 as the walk around lens, Of coz the sigma 10-20 is always in my bag as well but to be honest the I did not use it as much as I thought I would be since the people are the main subject of most of my photos and I did not want to go right in front of the strangers to get the photos. I did use the 50-135 a lot as well since many times I shoot right across the street.
Finally for low light I would highly suggest the FA31mm 1.8 or the cheaper sigma FA30mm 1.4. since it is just about wide enough for indoor shots. Remember indoor area in cuba are not really that big. They have many many interesting small corner shops that you might want your 30mm or 31mm to shoot with. And trust me you will be the 1.8 or 1.4 since they do not turn any lights on during the day and the shops are dark.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 03:27 PM
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lol.... nah... just wanted to point out that what most westerners have a very one sided view of north korea, that is all. I love traveling alot more than politics.
Anyways I am happy that my photos had shown many people on the forum the lastest view of an isolated nation.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 03:17 PM
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Please post your photos after your trip. Cuba had been changing so fast during the past few years. My photos were taken in 2010. I am looking forward to see some new ones.
BTW how did you manage to find such an old post of mine?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 10:19 AM
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I guess north korea has changed alot during the past few years.
Let me start answering your question regarding about hop on public transportation and hire a car.
North Korea is a comminist state and all the basic are being provied by the state inculding housing, education, health services and food. Everyone supposes to be equal but I suppose there are some people are being more equal than others such as living in a better apartment or playing angry bird on their ipad (North Korean Made). They do small get a small amount of cash payment after their basic allowance for food and transport etc. They average cash the earn is around $40 USD a month from what I understand. They can use that cash to buy extra things that is not inculded in their allowance, such as buying cigarettes, extra food, snacks, cinema, blowing, buy a new set of LED TV instead of those old model given by the state. etc... Now their local currency worth nothing to us in the outside world. But for them everything is heavliy subsidised by the state as well. So for example a metro ticket would only cost $0.05 USD, pack of cigarettes $0.50 USD. Cinema ticket $0.20 USD. In order to get this bargain price you have to work for the state and everyone is an employee of the state from street cleaner and school teacher to tour guides and doctors as well as singers and TV stars, they are all goverment employees and every single person in north korea are entitle to these "wonderful" benefits.
For us as a tourist we do not get these benefit since we never pay any tax "work for the state" in north korea. This is the reason why we as tourist can are offically not allow to use their local currency since it is a subsidised currency for the korean people only. And yet North Korea has not developed a good system on rather how much they should charge the tourist for using their systems such as getting on their metro and buses. So they just let use use it for free "inculded in the tour package". But we do have to travel with our tour guides as he/she to let the ticket person know that we have paid already for the journey. When I was in the metro I was able to have a few short conversation with the locals and that wasn;t a problem to our tour guide at all. I understand that if you are a journlist with a big TV camera then it could be different but for me with a pentax K5 + 31mm FA lens it wasn;t a problem.
I was in the tour so I can not rent a car there. but from what I know you can now rent a car in china to do a self drive tour in North Korea from April this year. Yes you have a lot of freedom and you can drive to villages speak to the locals if you can speak korean.
Our tour guides never try to hide anything from us. We see wealthier people as well as people without shoes in the villages and I was allow to take picture of them. Not a problem. But again I guess the image of not being allowed to take picture of bad things is because we only watch western documentaries and those journlist always asking diffcult questions to the tour guide/minder. And with a big TV camera I think yes they would only allow you to take picture of the best things only.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:39 AM
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The more oppressive and isolated the country is the more I wanted to go.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:36 AM
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Yes most of the time we were in Pyongyang and a boarder town of Kaesung only. Ceausescu's Romania is very different from what North Korea is today. If I remember correctly Ceausescu tried to be between from other eastern european states by going against the USSR and built a good relationship with the west. The country took on huge debt to build Ceausescu's role model kingdom and during the 80s Ceausescu decided to pay it all back in a short period of time which made its people suffer badly and to make things worst he decided to use 25% of the annual GDP to build that stupid people's palace towards the end of his life.
On the other hand north korea is different. North Korea never once try to kiss the ass of the western world. Back in the 60s North Korea was in fact more develop than South Korea due to the fact that they had the former USSR support while the US backed south korea didn't get the same level of support due to most resouses had taken to support the Vietnam war.
So north korea had never take out any loan from other countries. Yes they sometimes ask for aid but they never take out loan. As you would know 50%+ of the annual GDP is for their military and they do sell arms to countires like iran, cuba and some other developing nations to. I think they are short of oil right now but apart from that I think the country is not so bad at all.
You mention I was being shown only the best part of North Korea, yes that is partly true, but then if you join a tour to go to New York, London and paris they will just show you the tourist area as well instead of the slums. So I can not show you guys how the north korea slums look like. But at least I did have load of freedom to wonder around they gave us some freetime to rome around and take pictures and even speak to the local people.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 09:16 AM
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Just join a tour and get in there and take picture like you do in any other country. I did take far more pictures in north korea than in most other countries I traveled to since it is such a special place to visit. North Korea is not most westerners think it is. It is the media tries to open report the bad side of the countries. Yes they are a developing country and still running the cumminist system, but from what I saw the North Korean people's living standard is not that bad, In fact they seems to have better living standard than many places I been to in the world such as morocco, egypt etc.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 02:02 AM
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#1
_GEO1097-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Arirang mass game, notice the background is made with human pixels. 25,000 human pixel to make up the background image.
#2
_GEO1093-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
#3
_GEO1112-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
#4
_GEO1718-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Rush hour near the main railway station in of Pyongyang.
#5
_GEO1764-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
#6
_GEO1819-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Temporary drink stores set up during the summer months selling Korean suju.
#7
_GEO1820-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
These drink stores are very popular among the locals
#8
_GEO1823-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
These are how the North Korea school uniform look like.
#9
_GEO1901-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Believe or not this photo was taken in the theme park. Everyone was in military uniform. I asked them why they were in uniform and they told me that they have just finished their shift and their whole unit had a surprise day out to the theme park to enjoy their evening organized by the government.
#10
_GEO1928-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Everyone was in uniform but one. I wonder if she had been awarded home cloth day.
#11
_GEO2091-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
The interesting thing about North Korea is that you can still see their traditional clothing on the street.
#12
_GEO2097-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Another temporary street store.
#13
_GEO2099-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Or a few less temporary ones.
#14
_GEO1418-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
A lady walked pass a photography studio.
#15
_GEO1423-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
There aren't many cars in pyongyang but older model European cars can still be found on the street of pyongyang.
#16
_GEO1781-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Model phone can be seen use everywhere on the street of Pyongyang.
#17
_GEO1789-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
Time for school!!!
#18
_GEO2160-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
No matter how much the North Koreans hate Japan, afterall they still use a Japanese made Sony video recorder.
#19
_GEO2237-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
#20
_GEO2269-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
A young korean lady sells snaks in the train station.
#21
_GEO2289-1 by geovienso, on Flickr
A local train.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 01:14 AM
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The tour costed me around 750 euros for the 4 days tour departing from Beijing.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-28-2013, 12:35 AM
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Yes, there are a few good restaurant around but do not expect them to be luxury, Waitress can't speak any english so it is a bit hard to order the food. 99% of the restaurants are Korean food only. There are a few fast foodrestaurants as well as a few pizza houses but that is about it.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-27-2013, 11:14 PM
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Nice, but if they were shot wider angle would be even better.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-27-2013, 09:49 PM
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By the way, due to my budget my tour was a very short one. I spent 4 days in North Korea.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
10-27-2013, 09:11 PM
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Since around 10 years ago I seen many documentaries about north korea and the majority shows the bad side of the country, the concentration camps, the nuclear test etc. That is how I builded my knowledge about this isolated country. Then about 4 years ago I had the chance to visit the former Yugoslavia, spoken to many local people and found that there are many difference between what the western media tells us and the fact. I am not saying that the media is telling lies but they simply just tell part of the truth. To understand the full story you have to go and speak to multiple people and find out the fact yourself, E.g. I spoken to Bosnians as well as Serbians about the conflict in the 90s and gain a lot more understand about the whole conflict. Since then I decided to travel to many politically hot places including Cuba and many former USSR states. And North Korea is always on top of my want to go list. And I finally I had the chance this year to find a right tour group that fits my budget. The only thing I can say is never believe what you see on the media 100% because it simply just part of the truth to draw viewers' attention. Yes I believe North Korea has prison camps but at the same time America had a prison camp in Cuba as well. If you think those being locked up in the american prison camp in cuba are terrorist then why don't we think those being locked up in North Korea are terrorist as well. I do not want to comment too extremely but the point I am trying to make is we do have to see everything from multiple prospective. And that is the reason why I traveled to North Korea to see what it is like there.
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