Greetings to my fellow Seoulites and Seoulites-in-spirit!
A lot of you have been with me for a long time, viewing my pictures in Seoul Selection's newsletter and magazine. I've greatly appreciated your comments, many of which have inspired me to take my camera in closer than I would have dared if I felt truly on my own, with no regular viewership to criticize, make suggestions, and egg me on.
It is for several reasons that I have decided to join the netizens if the 21st century and make a blog. It is not merely out of a need to express myself, since I do have a venue where my pictures are being published - but there are some constraints on what I can present within the venue I already find myself. The newsletter and the magazine are under some editorial constraints given by Seoul City Hall, so I have never really been able to let loose with some of the photos that I feel also typify the type of work I do, and the concerns I have. Simply put, City Hall wants us foreigners to see the "nice" side of this city, and by extension, Korea. So the darker underbelly of Korea doesn't get any play.
I can't really blame them. Seoul Selection receives funding from City Hall, so they have other concerns than guranteeing me a wide range of artistic expression. So I am blogging to give my faithful supporters a fuller view of the work I am trying to do, especially as I get down to the final edit of my photo book, which is really, really (!) nearing completion.
So, faithful and encouraging supporters of my ongoing project, in these pages you will get a fuller view of my work and intentions through the pictures you haven't been able to see and the words I haven't had a venue to offer you. I plan to publish a new pic roughly every week, with more frequent bloglike-commentary flowing far more frequently.
Please be long-winded and unreserved in your comments to me. And if there are any questions you've been wanting to have answered, this is the forum in which to post them.
Thanks, and I'll see you 'round the streets of Seoul.
