davidsmeaton.com

wow … 2008 was a hell of a year. for me, it was probably the busiest and craziest year of my life.

the year started with a bang. first came the big d, followed by quitting my university job and starting work at an adult education school. i really missed my university position. it was such a fun, cruisy job. moving to the adult school was hell on earth. i spent the entire year waking up at 5.40 am, having to be at school by 6.20 am. i began classes every day at 6.30 am.  the school had its ups and downs. the schedule was terrible, but my students were always fantastic. the management was moronic, but the actual classes were fairly easy … overall, however, i’ll be very glad to leave that school … worst. job. ever.

i’ve saved a lot of money this year … a bi-products of working like a dog. that’s definitely been the biggest highlight of the year, since it has opened up a lot of doors in terms of future options. it’s hard to believe that i worked four jobs this year. i had money coming in from everywhere. just when i thought i couldn’t get busier, i’d pick up a job editing a thousand page textbook, or some other assignment which would keep me up late at night, make me tired and grumpy, but keep the bank account ticking along nicely. i have to be honest and i can definitely say that i know now how it feels to be korean - working long hours, getting very little sleep, having no social life, and focusing on the money … it’s a terrible way to live, and i definitely couldn’t do it forever.

this has also been a good year for photography. i picked up a few odd jobs, made a little bit of money, bought some lenses and gear, started a photography club, published columns in korea’s english newspaper, made a bunch of friends and taken heaps of photos. i’ve learned a lot and had a lot of fun with photography this year. i think i’ve improved and i can take away a lot more skills. but i’ve still got a lot to learn, especially with editing, but there’s plenty of time to work on that.

i bought my first leica this year. my film camera was so much fun … and just what i needed to mix things up a bit. i got to play with film, as well as do some printing and developing. the leica is going with craig back to australia. hopefully he’ll get some use out of it for the next few years.

my website has done well. i’ve started getting traffic and making a few friends. the site has been through a few redesigns as i try and find my style. the design that i’ve got now is hopefully the design that i will keep for a while. it’s fantastically minimal. i bought a few domains and played around with internet stuff.

i don’t usually talk about my relationships on my blog, but i did have a good relationship this year. i know i have not always been a perfect guy, but i’ve learned a lot from my mistakes.

i started reading books again, which was nice. i tried to learn the ukulele, but gave up. i tried to learn korean and spanish, but gave up. i tried to spend more time learning php and css, but gave up too. i attribute my failures to a lack of sleep and lack of time, rather than a lack of willpower!

liverpool had a good year. despite the lack of trophies, they fought hard and played well. the signings of torres and keane have been huge for the club. liverpool finish the year on top of the table, for the first time in 12 years. here’s hoping that they can hold on until may and take home the league title.

rubberchicken winging his way to korea in december was the cherry on the cake. i hadn’t seen my little buddy in three years, so it was good to hang out with him. happy new years mate!

the year will finish tonight and now i have to look forward to 2009.

my resolutions are to travel, take more photos, learn spanish, work as little as possible. i’m not a big ‘resolutions’ person, and 2009 is a difficult year to make promises, but i’m hoping that it’ll be a good year with much more fun and much more freedom.

to all my friends and family, happy new year. i wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

craig has been in korea for nearly two weeks. so far we’ve had a bit of fun and hung out together. mostly, it was good to catch up with him, since i haven’t seen him in three years. on saturday night, craig and i headed out to coex to photograph the huge buddha statue at bong eun temple. we headed out around dusk and climbed the hill behind the statue. we got a few shots and went back down. i’ve already been to this spot twice, so last night’s shoot was mainly for craig’s benefit.

the rubber chicken will be in korea for another week before bouncing out to hong kong on his way back to oz. actually, the korean weather has got the best of craig, and he’s been sick for two days. hopefully he’ll start feeling better so we can enjoy the last week of his stay.

the highlights so far have been corn, chatting and joking randomly, running away from people who start random converstations with us on the subway “hello, are you from siberia?”, corn, listening to hockey games online, braving the cold to shoot at night, corn, and various other musings.

it’s been awesome to catch up …

thanks to my boss at kepco, i’ve started reading again. for the past year i haven’t really picked up many books. while on the subway, or out and about, i’d just listen to music or watch a movie downloaded on my pmp player.

however, a week ago, my boss loaned me a book called “who won the oil wars?”. obviously, it’s a book about oil cartels and their influences on modern history. the book has been good reading and i’ve been carrying it around with me to read on the subway or during spare minutes.

this wasn’t the first book i’d been loaned recently. i had just finished reading “the art of travel” which was given to me by a student.

so, i’ve got myself back into reading … last week i got my hands on a play by maxim gorky, and some commedia dell ‘arte. i bought those from another teacher. in bandi and lunis bookstore on tuesday i got the metamorphosis by franz kafka and the communist manifesto by marx and engels. today i had to rush to itaewon and meet a guy who’s taking over my photo club. while in itaewon i traded a bunch of books and picked up travel book, a book about krishna consciousness and a national geographic travel destinations magazine.

whilst significantly reducing my book collection, i also managed to pick up a few things i wanted to read … which will keep me entertained over the next 14 weeks.

i’ve got myself a handy little device, a geometr gps unit which attaches to my nikon camera. the unit locks on to satellites and tracks my location. then, when i take a photo, the data is automatically added to the exif data.

as a result, i can locate the exact position i was standing when i took the photo, which is very cool. the device arrived from the taiwan distributor last week. i had it on my camera thursday when i went to work and tested the gps tracker out. i took a few photos and also used the gps tracker on friday when i went to seoul forest.

here’s a photo i took on thursday (exif data is available in the photo’s properties):

once i downloaded the photo to my computer, i edited it and uploaded the photo to flickr.com. flickr has an automatic mapping service thanks to their owners at yahoo. i pulled up the map and got this result:

that’s very cool. the longitude and latitude points are very precise. i recognise the area and it’s exactly where i was standing when i took the photo. the pink dot represents where i stood. the arrow is pointing in the direction of the world trade centre.

the gps unit is great, although it does take about a minute to lock its position when i first turn the device on. however, that’s not a major problem. it doesn’t seem to use much battery life, so i can leave it on while i’m walking around and it constantly updates my position.

i definitely plan on taking the tracker with me during my travels … and i’ve promised the geometr company that i’d write a review of the gps device, which will probably appear in the next week or so.

i didn’t spend the whole weekend on an island, but yesterday i did go to nami island for a look around. actually, i’m surprised that i’d never heard of nami island before. it’s become quite famous amongst koreans, partly because of the drama that was filmed there called ‘winter sonata’. anyway, it’s a small island in the middle of the river near cheun cheon. there’s not very much to do, but i did enjoy walking around the island (took about an hour) and taking photos … however, i forgot to take my leica out of my bag, so i have no b&w shots!

after nami island, i headed to another near by area and stayed the night. the next morning i went to a place called ‘morning calm’. it was quite calm … but actually it was just a big flower and botanical garden. some of the features were nice and it was fun to walk around, but i didn’t really get many shots i liked. i headed back to seoul this afternoon.

nami island was pretty cool, and i’ve decided to go back there in winter. when there is some snow on the ground, i think the island would be quite beautiful. so i’m keen to have another crack at photographing it.

i’m looking forward to a much needed rest day tomorrow. my stomach has been playing up on me, and after eating spicy chicken yesterday, i’ve not been feeling the best.

i haven’t done a travel update in a while, however i have been thinking about the travels … constantly.

i was actually reading an interesting article about how some of the ’stan’ countries are very interesting and very safe. particularly, uzbekistan’s capital tashkent. so i got to looking at my map (again) and discovered that i could change one part of my route to workin at least 3 more countries. from delhi i planned to go to lahore and on to karachi. i can cross pakistan’s border there into southern iran and follow the trade route all the way to tehran.

however, if i go from delhi into lahore, i could head north to islamabad. then i can probably get a train north into tajikistan. i may have to pass through far western afghanistan, but i don’t think it would be too problematic. after reaching dushanbe, i could keep going west to tashkent, then south into turkmenistan all the way to ashgabat. that’s very close to the iran border and not too far at all from tehran. whilst in iran, i might venture south to a few areas of interest, then circle back to the north east and exit to turkey.

although it might be more complex, i think it could be a lot more fun. from my understanding, none of those countries are dangerous and i should have no trouble moving around and getting trains from place to place. it’s a much more interesting route than skirting the bottom of pakistan into iran.

an interesting article, courtesy of the bbc, states that australia is suffering a man drought. the statistics conclude that australia has 100,000 more women than men, which is actually a lot considering our population size. while aussie women have become better educated and richer, aussie men are leaving the country to live and work abroad … an example of which is the 12,000 boomers living in UAE, most of whom are young males.

while this may seem like a bad thing, there are definitely upsides … aussie guys can take the pick of the bunch, leaving only the lesbians, uglies and fatties …

it’s not often that i’m in front of the camera … but i do like to be the subject occasionally.

some people are sanctimonious prats, desperate for column inches … an article by adele horin (which somehow got published by the sydney morning herald) suggests that aussies travel too much and that our carbon footprint is too big. she says that aussies are hypocrits because we claim to be environmentally concerned yet spend lots of time flying (which produces enormous co2 emissions). her diatribe was the result of some kind of ‘awakening’ after she listened to richard begbie on abc radio, denouncing air travel as the last environmental taboo.

wired magazine posted something of a rebuttal to her statements here.

my opinion on this is that it’s easy to denounce plane travel, especially after you’ve been doing it for a while and suddenly decide that it’s wrong. very convenient when you’re no longer a regular traveler. my other problem with her rant is that it’s also easy to be critical without being constructive.

as discussed, australia is an isolated country. so there are numerous arguments in support of our need for plane travel. the simple practicalities are that we have no other feasible way of getting places away from our big, far flung continent. it’s a different case for america, england and europe. most people in the northern hemisphere can travel by land or sea … or short plane trips, such as from new york to london. so i completely agree that plane travel is not a necessary form of transportation when other alternatives do exist.

the second problem is that australia has a very small population. 19 million ockers pales in comparison to america’s 300 million, the uk’s 70 million and a few hundred million spread across europe. such large populations makes it easier for mass transport to be profitable. travel anywhere within australia is expensive, because of the massive distances and lack of infrastructure to support it. i remember flying from london to amsterdam for 50 quid. that would never be possible in australia. it cost me nearly as much to catch a train from rockhamption to the gold coast.

that leads to my point, that air travel (despite its huge co2 emissions) isn’t the big problem. two hundred million cars driving around the world on a daily basis is one of the biggest co2 problems we have. the daily waste of oil and the daily pollution of the atmosphere is a more serious issue. currently, america is reluctant to increase emission standards and other companies are increasing standards only in the face of growing criticism. where air travel is necessary for australians, cars are not necessary for 50% of drivers around the world who live in cities with very good public transport systems; seoul, tokyo, new york and paris are good examples.

developing countries are also bigger problems. china is outpacing america and will continue to grow … further, as many chinese become richer, the lure of foreign travel is going to result in more planes in the sky. put 2% of china’s population in the air and that represents 25 million air travelers … more than my country’s population. africa and india are developing too, which adds another 2 billion to the number of people who are increasing their co2 usage … so while rich countries are decreasing their usage, 4 times more people are increasing their usage.

the polution that is created on a daily basis (vehicles, factories, etc) is a far more immediate problem. air travel too, while being a problem, is one that cannot be overcome so easily. all experts agree that there are no readily available alternatives … especially for countries like australia and new zealand which are so remote. air travel can definitely be reduced. people can travel by land and sea where possible. video lectures and conferencing is also a reasonable alternative for people who travel on business.

another alternative is for the australian government to support australians who want to travel, by helping aussies get abroad without using planes. it may sound ridiculous, but traveling to darwin by train, then a boat to singapore would put aussies in the heart of asia. from there it’s a train ride to bangkok or a flight to europe. the travel time would be over a week, but the emissions would be cut dramatically. for travelers and retirees, the extra travel time is not a problem. the costs are higher, sure, but the government can offset such costs by providing tax exemptions to companies who offer cross-continental travel options.

bali is also close to australia, and is one of our favourite travel destinations. i don’t see any reasons why it cannot be reached by train (to north queensland or darwin) and ship.

i never said that these solutions were practical … i said they were alternatives.

aussies do have a traveling spirit, so i don’t see why we should be punished when the rest of the world decides that air travel is wrong. sure, it is wrong for most, but for a few it’s very necessary. nobody needs to fly from london to paris, or from new york to miami. but to escape the great southern land, there aren’t many choices … short of spending a month on a boat.

next year i start my world travels and i plan on taking as few planes as possible … my estimate is 3 or 4 plane trips in 18 months and 50 countries … it can be done.

where there’s a will, there’s a way … so stop picking on a few fair dinkum travelers, when the other problems are far far greater.

owie!

i went to the public health centre this morning and got my first of 3 hepatitis B injections. i need to go back in one month for jab #2 and again at the end of january for jab #3. the best part, aside from the pain, is the fact that each injection is only costing me 3,400 won ($3.40).

unfortunately, hepatitis A is not provided at the government health centres, so i have to go to a regular hospital or clinic for that (read: it’ll be much more expensive).

fortunately, my yellow fever injection can be had at a public health centre too.

unfortunately, the local centres don’t have it, i have to go to the national health centre in dongdaemun.

fortunately, they also have frozen yoghurt … unfortunately, the frogurt is cursed.

none the less, i’m quite pleased with this morning’s discovery. now i just need to sort out hep A.

Although I love shooting in film, there are some definite advantages to digital photography. One of the coolest benefits is the ability to geotag photos.

Geotagging is, simply, the ability to add latitudinal and longitudinal data to a photograph. This data is usually captured through some kind of GPS device and can be added to the photo’s EXIF data.

For those who don’t know, EXIF data is a summary of the camera’s information for each photo. The EXIF data is stored when the photo is taken. If you view the EXIF data on your computer, you can learn many things about your photograph, including shutter speed, aperture, focal length, metering mode and a lot more. EXIF data also remembers your camera’s make and model, as well as if you’ve edited the photo and what settings you used in camera to adjust the photo (such as sharpening or extra saturation).

So, geotagging has become the latest craze in digital photography. Not only can you geotag your photo, but when you add your images to photo sharing sites like flickr.com, the site reads the geotagged information. The cool thing about this feature is that your photo is now able to be searched via its location, not just from keywords. Your photo can also be added to galleries or maps and compared to photographs taken at similar sites.

Currently, the best way to geotag photos is to carry a small GPS device with you. It requires that, later on the computer, you add the data to photos manually, or via simple software designed to port such data into photographs.

Sites like flickr’s organizr already allow you to add geotagging data to photos as you upload them.

However geotagging has become so popular that many manufacturers are creating geotagging devices for cameras. Some devices are designed to be carried in your pocket, but sync with the time stamp on your camera to update the GPS info through support software. Other devices connect straight to your camera and add the GPS data to each photo as its taken.

The future of geotagging will definitely come through manufacturers including GPS capabilities directly into the camera. Some high end cameras already incorporate this data, but soon it’ll become a standard in digital photography.

It’s definitely worth learning to use geotagging and add GPS data to your photos. Not only will that allow you to sort your pictures based on where you took them, but it will also enable your photos to be categorized, searched, grouped and compared online, since many popular sites already have geotagging features.

Before you know it, you’ll be using sites like Google Earth to search for photos of interesting places. Although geotagging won’t improve your photography, I think it does improve the photography ‘experience’. Not only can you show people where you’ve been, but if you see a fantastic photograph, you can take note of its GPS data and go hunt for the exact same spot.

Geotagging could also be a lot of fun in other ways. It can be a great educational tool, teaching children geography skills. It could also become a great new sport, like a kind of scavenger hunt. You can challenge people to get to certain places, take a photo from a set of precise coordinates, and return with photographic evidence of each place. It could be done on a limited scale (a city) or on a wider scale (nationally or even globally).

Geotagging is definitely something to get involved in, especially while the technology is still developing.

Happy shooting!

David Smeaton

the more i read about nikon’s new D700, the more impressed i am by it. the camera is seriously good, with all the features of the D300, including many features from the D3 … including, most notably, a full frame sensor.

as i predicted earlier, nikon release their second full frame camera, keeping in step with canon, and the D700 is a whole lot of camera. the camera has vibration cleaning (which the D300 has, but D3 doesn’t have), cropping feature for cropped lenses, 5 fps (upgradable to 8 fps with the extra battery grip), a redesigned lcd, live view, menus galore, and more features than i can possibly remember. as well, the camera handles noise beautifully (unlike my D200) and has great battery life (also unlike my D200).

this is one seriously bad-ass camera.

i said that i would never buy the D300 because it doesn’t represent enough of an upgrade over my D200 (a camera i love to death). however, i guessed that the successor to the D300 would be a great camera and i’d probably buy one. that camera is the D700 … while technically not a successor (cause it’s midway between the D3 and the D300), it’s good enough to justify the investment.

at the end of february next year, just before i head out of korea, i’ll pick up the D700. of course, the camera hasn’t been tested extensively yet … but if it lives up to promise, it’ll live in my camera back and earn it’s money across 50 countries. it’ll also be my first full frame dslr.

life in korea is a bit of a drag … the weather is about as fickle as the natives. it constantly switches between rainy, hot, cold, smoggy, and combinations of the four. yesterday, just to be different, we had hail. admittedly, it was the first hail i’ve seen in korea and the first ever hail most of my students have seen. it hailed very loudly for about 20 minutes before returning to the regular downpour.

the day’s are long and tiring. however, i’m managing it all and also finding some time to relax. this weekend is a three day break, thanks to memorial day, so i plan on making the most of it. friday i have a dental appointment (checkup and clean), saturday i’m going to cheunmuro and getting my film developed. while i’m there i have a few things on the shopping list. the biggest item is a filter system for my camera. i’ve got my eye on a few smaller things, but mostly just accessories which won’t take up too much room and will be handy during my trip.

i did something crazy on sunday. i fired an email to an organization which has an arrangment to send teachers to north korea. they wrote back straight away with the contact details of the lady directly in charge of the program. they told me that the jobs in north korea don’t come up often, but i’m welcome to try. i sent an email to the woman who runs things and i’m waiting to hear back from her … i have no idea what i’ll do if they tell me i can actually get a job in DPRK. lol

the jobs are all plodding along. i’m dividing my time between my school and two offices. i also have a private ‘one on one’ lesson (authorised by my school). the school job is really annoying. my boss is a bean counter and tries to screw the teachers out of every possible cent. i’ve no doubt that i’ll have a run in with him before too long. however, i have passed the 5 month mark. so in another 4 weeks i’ll have completed half of my contract. that will leave me 6 more months and probably an extra 2 months to take me through to march 1st when i’ll leave korea.

speaking of which, i’m having fun planning my travels but i have two major quandries. the first problem is trying to work the 2010 world cup into my plans. the world cup starts in june and i don’t realistically think i’ll have made it to cuba by then. the most likely option is that i’ll just cut the travel wherever i am, fly to africa for the world cup, tour the rest of the continent, then fly back to where i left off. it’s not ideal, and hopefully i can work it so that i’m in the region at the right time … but if worst comes to worst i can at list wrangle things together enough to make it work.

i also tried making a travel calendar … but that went horribly awry. it’s almost impossible to calculate how long it’s going to take me. travel times between countries, the number of cities, how long in each place, are all really hard to guestimate. so i have given up on trying to make a calendar. instead, i’ll plan a comprehensive travel route and not worry about sticking to a time schedule.

and i’m pissed off that bhutan is going to be so damned expensive to visit … i’ve got the famous ‘tigers nest monastary’ on my list of things to see, but unless i can work out how to get around without spending $300 a day, then i’ll be forced to skip the entire country.

been doing some shopping research … and have come up with a few things that i want to buy in the next 6-7 months.

1. olympus 1030 sw digital camera.  having a 3rd camera in my bag may seem nuts, but there are going to be advantages to having a point and shoot. firstly, i can make short movies. second, people don’t react to pocket cameras like they do to big slr and dslr cameras. third, this camera is waterproof to 10 meters, shockproof and works in all temperatures.
2. i’ve decided on a 70 litre backpack. there are 3 contenders: Lowe Alpine TFX Summit 75+20, osprey aether 70 and gregory baltoro 70 hiking pack. the lowe alpine is on the top of the list. but the osprey would be a good second choice. the 20 litre day pack seals the deal … it’s just a matter of whether i can find the bag in korea.
3. northface baltoro boots. i want to buy these about a month or 8 weeks before i leave, so that i have time to break them in. i’ll only be taking one pair of shoes (as well as a pair of sandals) so i need to invest in solid footwear.

those are the 3 most important items. most other stuff i already have or is much smaller. i did have a waterproof camera, however it’s quite old and not very flexible. i already sold it for what i paid … so i didn’t lose any money on the camera!! lol … the olympus is about the size of a deck of cards, so it’s definitely a good pocket camera.