Feeding My Passion

Being a photojournalism major, having recently researched digital cameras, and having bought one a couple weeks ago, some people I’ve met ask me what camera I would recommend. I think my best answer to that question is: The best camera is the one that makes you want to take pictures.

If you buy a top-of-the-line Digital SLR (such as the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV), but you’re not itching to take pictures with it, then it’s not the best camera (for you). If you buy an inexpensive little point-and-shoot (like the Pentax Optio 430), carry it with you everywhere, and whip it out at every opportunity to capture what’s happening in front of you and what you see, then you’ve picked a winner (for you). The best camera for me is somewhere in the middle based on the image quality I’m interested in, ease of use, size (how conspicuous I feel when I’m taking pictures), etc.

I know it’s not a very specific answer, but I feel my answer starts people thinking about how they should think about the camera they’d like to buy.

When I finished my degree earlier this year, my brother-in-law was kind enough to lend me his Nikon D200, which was a HUGE step up for me from anything I’d ever used before. The D200 wasn’t Nikon’s top of the line (that would be, at least right now, the D3S), but it certainly was a pleasure making pictures with it compared to the Nikon Coolpix 5400 I owned. I was dreading having to get through my class with that little thing. The best thing about the class, besides the opportunity for me to do a photo essay on Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, was the assignment to take a photo a day for 30 days, and then for another 30 days. We could do anything we wanted, be it ambitious, artistic, journalistic, experimental, unambitious, whatever. Getting in the habit of taking a photo a day is a very good thing, especially for someone aspiring to be a professional photographer, who will very likely be taking several photo (assignments) a day. You start carrying your camera around a lot more (if not everywhere), you start looking for photos, you talk to a lot more people, your skill with your camera improves, etc. I wrote down a list of all the benefits (on paper) that I could detect in myself and could anticipate, I’ll have to dig it up.

One of the worst things that could have happened during those two 30-day assignments was for me to think “This camera is such a pain in the butt to use that I don’t want to take a picture today.” I think there are enough internal barriers to taking pictures that to have an external one is really unnecessary. So when I didn’t take a picture (and I missed a couple days as a result of those internal barriers, days I had to catch up), it was never because of the camera, it was only me.

Tuesday night, about 11:45p, Byeongjeom, South, Korea, a restaurant poetically named General Pee’s (yes, that’s Pee as in pee-pee) – The place is hopping, totally packed. Adam P. (no relation to General Pee), and I are looking around and we have the same thought, why on earth is a restaurant so busy so late on a weeknight? I haven’t spent any time in Spain, but I’ve heard that it’s similar to this, that the Spaniards also start eating (and drinking, and I’m not talking about soda) quite late, at least compared to the US. But during the week?

Matthew, our best Korean friend and the guy who’s treating us to this table-top grill meat-fest, says many of the people in the restaurant (and I’m assuming at the many, many nearby joints as well), don’t have to work tomorrow. I’d have to hear it from them to truly believe it, but I’ll take his word for it. Still, it’s amazing, the amount of food being eaten and beer and soju being consumed for a Tuesday night. We’re leaving at 11:45p and we’re leaving early, nobody else seems to be really ready to go.

It’s Matt’s first payday at his new job, and he’s treating us. I pour his soju, he pours our beer. He shovels another dozen slices of super thinly-sliced lean beef onto the blazingly-hot table-top grill (too many hyphens? probably). The three of us eat lustily. The beef is incredibly thin, in long, bacon-like strips. It must have been literally shaved off with a meat planer from a big block while it was very cold, the curls of meat are quite lovely. Once cooked, it’s melts in our mouths. Matthew calls it paper beef, though this isn’t a translation, just his poetic interpretation. Dipping the caramelized strips in the toasted sesame oil, salt, and pepper mixture we each get makes it that much better, so much better. The side dishes are good and fresh: cooked cabbage kimchi, green onion salad, green lettuce salad, macaroni salad (not kidding, and not bad), raw garlic slices, raw hot chili pepper slices, plain tofu, spicy bean paste sauce…have I left anything out? Oh, the ubiquitous soybean sprout soup, some sort of egg dish that comes to the table so insanely hot that it bubbles away for a few minutes after the server brings it to the table. Matthew knows I like doenjang jigae (soybean paste stew), so he buys a bowl of it for me and some rice as well. Groan…hope I can make it home without popping.

I’m so happy Korean food is generally very healthy, all except for the fried foods, and there’s none of that here. Oh I forgot a couple more side dishes: a very thinly sliced raw cabbage salad with a Chinese hot mustard dressing, and of course, fresh green leaf lettuce, to which we add a little grilled garlic, or maybe some green onion salad, or kimchi, and the grilled meat, before creating a little leafy, green bundle, and dipping it in the spicy bean paste sauce and popping it into our mouths. Like Vietnamese food, it’s a wonderful combination of flavors, textures, and temperatures, which is why I like Vietnamese, and now Korean food, so much.

We waddle outside and open our umbrellas which give us very little protection against the heavy summer rain. We’re full and fully satisfied, our happy glow a result of sharing a great meal with friends, knowing we have fully tasted everything offered and made the most of it.

Time for bed and to dream sweetly of my ever-present love, Kamila. If I’m really lucky, maybe I’ll catch her on Skype before I drift off.