Halla Mountain, Jeju Island, South Korea

This is a shot of the valley as you see it before you while you decent from Halla Mountain on the island of Jeju in South Korea. It is a beautiful place and one that is often surrounded by clouds. The cloud barrier that is visible had formed itself along the shore of the island. The scenery there is astounding.

Suburban South Korea

This photograph was taken one night on a walk home after a nice long day in Jung Ang Park. It was odd that we decided to take a different route home, but our new path led us to stumble on this wonderful sculpture that I think works beautifully as a humerous depiction of a modern atlas.

Here we have a night time view of a busy six lane highway that runs through my neck of the woods. There is a non stop flow of traffic on this road, no matter what time of day or night. I picked this location for the bus stop as it is a bustling arena of taxi cabs, and local and Seoul buses.

This photograph is just near my home and I have traveled this sidewalk many times! It walks you just past a nutty nightclub ( the verticle sign, the "Fana night club"). I was merely walking through this area when the idea struck me to have a mid air shot of someone jumping, so we quickly set-up and amused all the passers by. It was fun. I enjoy the life and energy that this particular shot lends us.

This was taken in Jung Ang Park in Sunae dong, Bundang, South Korea. Jung Ang is a beautiful park with an overabundance of wonderful places to sit and relax. It is a great place to go and forget that your surrounded by 30 story apartments, and a sometimes blisteringly hot city.

Bijarim Nutmeg Forest, Jeju Island, South Korea

This is a shot of some small bushes and leaves in the Bijarim Nutmeg Forest on the island of Jeju in South Korea. It is a beautiful place and there are many trees there that are 800 years old, some are even older.

Suburban Bundang

The suburb of Bundang snakes its way through the small narrow mountain ranges that compress its expansion. Bundang is only about 15-20 blocks wide, and on either side of Bundang are mountains such as this. On good days when the smog is light, one is able to capture beautiful view of the valley being light up by the setting sun.

Suburban Bundang

This is a lucky shot that I was able to capture of a thunder storm, in Yatap. Yatap is the Subway stop near my home and the area surrounding it is therefore called Yatap. Apparently, South Korea is famous for their monsoon thunder storms that occur every mid June and carry on through to August. This may only be the first of many such lightning shots.

Suburban Bundang

Here is a view of the river valley that runs past Nathan's apartment. This same river further down stream passes by my apartment. It's a nice little piece of green in the urban metropolis of Bundang, which is a suburb of Seoul.

I took this photograph to create an abstract visualization for the very real loss of Canadian talent to the outside world. Far too often Canadians have been leaving behind their country to explore alternative employment options within other countries. Most often this need to "look elsewhere" stems from an overabundance of educated individuals combined with the lack of financially acceptable career options. It is a terrible thing to lose so many bright minds.

Memories of Home

This is a shot form a road found just south of Edmonton Alberta. It was Taken last summer, and I have just recently been able to share it. It was a beautiful day, and it wonderfully captures the openness of the prairie region of Alberta.

Gyeongbokgung Palace Seoul, South Korea

The palace of Gyeongbokgung is an marvelous site to behold, for it is simply massive.

This is a view form inside the south gate. The south gate is the main gate into Gyeongbokgung Palace. Korean Palace construction, dictates that the south gate should always be the main gate and the north gate was to, always, remain closed. All traffic coming in or out of the palace would pass through these three main entrance ways, however, the middle entrance was reserved for the king and the sides entrances for everyone else. This gate is massive and does the rest of the palace justice for it is an impressive edifice blocking ones path, before you come to enter the royal palace of South Korea.

This is a view of the entrance gate to the main inner palace. This is the third gate one encounters upon reaching the palace. The first gate is the one you’re just seen and then you enter a very large court yard, only to be greeted with another gate. Once you pass through this gate and make your way through the second inner court yard you are confronted with this gate! This is the third and final gate, it allows you to enter the inner court yard of the king’s throne. In this photo, you can see the stone paved road leading up to the main entrance way. That road has two levels, the tallest in the middle was reserved only for the king and no one else was allowed to walk on it. The lower was for government peoples and the final dirt is for everyone else.

Gyeongbokgung Palace Seoul, South Korea

This is a shot of the many roof tops that are found in the main centre palace area. It is a wonderful area to visit and is an area where only a hundred years ago I would never have been able to see, for I would not be of the importance required to access such a deep position within the palace. This is the area where the King and his Queen would live, and no one other than servants or guests of the king would be allowed inside. It is a beautiful place to explore.

Gyeongbokgung Palace Seoul, South Korea

This is a photo of the rear of the palace where one finds the rear garden. Beyond the inner wall is the rear garden, where ones a finds beautifully landscaped garden. That garden is just beyond this shot the left. This particular view provides nice detail of the intricate wood work put into the palaces buildings. Most of these buildings were rebuilt in the late 1800's, as the palace was burnt to the ground by the Japanese. However, they have been meticulously reconstructed to show the exacting details of the craftsmanship involved in the construction of the housing. It is a very impressive style of architecture that requires no nails or glues! The palace grounds are an amazing experience.

Climbing Adventures with Yin, Wallace and Sheldon

This is a shot of Wallace making a very fluid ascent of "Spiderman". This vantage point was created by lying down with my back on the rocky earth, my head at Sheldon's feet while using a wide angle lens to shoot straight up the wall. I wanted, primarily, to convey the bareness, and skill of the climb, as one ascends from large cracks to smaller holds and on to mere dimples in the rock when approaching the crux. The amount of balance and grace needed to surpass the crux on this route is astounding, as it is a, not so simple, movement of replacing ones hand with a foot, where the hold upon which the swap is made is a miniscule depressions in the rock. At the moment this shot was taken, Wallace had just negotiated his way through the crux of the climb and is about to disappear from our view as he breaks the skyline. This is a wonderful climb for anyone who enjoys slab.

Sheldon on "Spiderman" (5.11c)

This is Sheldon climbing "Spiderman". "Spiderman" is a nice 5.11 slab route found in Hidden Valley within Jasper National Park. Sheldon is on his first ascent of the route, and just about to find his way into the crux (crux: the most difficult portion of a particular climb). It is easy to see why the route was so aptly named as there are so very few obivious holds found on this climb. I was able to take this shot by climbing into a perch we had set-up using two adjacent routes. This is the very same perch that I was in long enough to cause the front half of my left big toe to go nerve def. Sheldon informed me this condition is commonly known as "Christmas toe", apparently since I would not have feeling return to my toe until sometime around Christmas. Well, I can happily report that Christmas has not yet come around and I have had a full recovery of sensation in my big toe, though it did take several months for the nerves to re-grow.

This is a Remembrance Day series that demonstrates the age of our war monuments, for this is a photograph of the barracks that housed the defenders of the Halifax harbor during the Second World War. All of these photographs are of the barracks found in what is now Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

by Palamarek

This is the second photo in this series of photographs taken of the Barracks at Point Pleasant Park. This shot provides a closer view of the structure, and of its apparent state of disrepair, which is why fencing is now employed to keep people from exploring the hazardous buildings.

by Palamarek

This is the third and final photograph of the Barracks at Point Pleasant Park. I took this shot with the intention of capturing the whole barracks and bunker area, so as to really provide a feeling of the working conditions of soldiers on the home front defense during WWII. Age, the elements, and time have really have had there way with this structure, and it is a shame it is not currently being preserved.

by Palamarek