One of my fantasy pictures for a long time now, I finally got a decent version of it, taken here in Yeongdeungpo a few weeks ago. I have gotten some of my "fantasy pictures" already, these being images of Korean life that are difficult to put onto film, such as my red light district shot or the picture of the woman's resumé with "too old" scrawled across the top. But I have a couple iconic shots that I have yet to get, and which you may have noticed me trying to catch for the last few years – just the right shot, with the right composition, lighting, and facial expressions, of office girls walking in step with arms linked together is one of them; the other has been an iconic shot of a certain kind of youthful abandon and recklessness in Korea, found in the groups of motorcycle "bad" boys and girls who ride in packs at night on the city streets, honking their horns and yelling at the tops of their lungs.
The one I really want is one of the more typical situation, with a girl in skimpy clothing and heels yelling gleefully as her male buddy steers the motorbike with a steely determination. Here, I got half of that, and had to settle for the dude on the back. Had it been a girl, my quest would have been over; I could have moved on, bought a house, started a family. Or something like that.
Even the secondary elements are all there, with a shot of the other bike in the back, as the girl in the back clearly looks over in our direction. The composition's right, the shutter speed's right, as is the flash exposure, focus, and colors. Dammit!
So close, yet so far. As I've heard, "almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." That aphorism is more right for this photographer than its creator would never know.
