Two years ago, Korea hosted International Expo 2012 in the southern coastal city of Yeosu (여수세계박람회). With its theme “The Living Ocean and Coast”, the Expo aimed to address global issues such as climate change and protection of the ocean. Over 100 countries participated and an estimated 8 million people came to experience the sights and sounds in the sprawling complex built specifically for this event.
I was one of those 8 million visitors two years ago and I still go back to the Expo from time to time. It is being put to good use for various exhibits and events, and is generally a great place for a stroll with the family. It’s nice to see that even long after the Expo, thousands of people still come to enjoy the Expo site and facilities. Here are a few photos from my most recent visit to the Yeosu Expo.
Photographer’s corner:
The Yeosu Expo is a great place for street photography. It has a plethora of interesting backgrounds and lots of people wandering about. I originally intended to use my Fuji X100s for this trip, but an “epic fail” on my part left me with all 3 of my batteries discharged at the beginning of the trip.
I had no choice but to use my other camera: a Fuji X-E1 and Samyang 12mm lens, which is manual focus only. Luckily focusing with an ultra wide is quite easy because it’s at infinity beyond 1 meter or so. The X-E1 also has focus peaking, which made things much easier. Nevertheless, I was a bit nervous to be using my landscape camera for street photography. I got used to it after a while and began to enjoy the wider perspective.
In terms of subject matter, I focused on capturing relationships of people with their surroundings. As common practice in street photography, composition and subject placement were key, as well as capturing interesting moments. I also went in with a plan to capture a series of images. Over the past few months, my personal work has been mainly single images, and it was nice to make a series of images to tell the story of the day.
