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Signs by Stan Hudecki

Do you believe in signs?

Imagine yourself at home and you are feeling like you need to travel or go somewhere. Somewhere is a pretty large area, I can’t think of a place to travel to, but I feel like I must go away. So I ask the universe or god or whomever you believe in to send me a sign!

Then one night I can’t seem to sleep, so I decided to catch up on some of my reading. And I happen to be reading a blog that I enjoy and at the very very bottom, it says today is the last day for the early bird special to my street photography workshop. “Find your Soul in Seoul”… or at least that is the way I read it.

Was that a sign? I read this at 3 am and sat thinking about it for about an hour without looking up how to get to Seoul. I live in Hamilton, Ontario Canada (close to Toronto). I have travelled in the past but not much further than North America since 2018. So if this was a sign, then I would need to have faith, and trust that I was being guided to step completely out of my comfort zone to fly 13000km to attend a 3day workshop.

I interpreted the name of the workshop or at least the name. Find your Soul in Seoul. I absolutely took this as a sign! So I signed up. Now I had never met Eric Kim, I only knew him from reading his blog and watching his YouTube videos. I had a feeling about this guy. He seemed very enlightened and sincere, traits you do not often find.

I signed up for this 3day workshop 3 weeks before it began. Eric emailed me a day or so later welcoming me to the event, told me where we would be meeting each day and advised me to email him with any questions.

It would take 3 flights to get there, 2 shorter ones and one very long one. Due to time restraints, I booked my flights to arrive a day before the workshop. I did not take into consideration any jet lag or time differences. So arriving at 4 am the day before added to the leap of faith.

We met the 11 am the following day 31 hours after landing. He and I hit it off immediately perhaps because we were both photographers. I felt an immediate connection like we had known each other for years. We spent the first part of our day talking. Eric is a very wise man and can walk the talk so to speak. It was fantastic to meet him. We then went out and did some street shooting.

Street photography in Seoul market with Stan Hudecki

I had very little street shooting experience, most of the shooting I had done in the past was very controlled in studio-type environments. I always had full control of my shoots, the lighting, the poses, and the surroundings. I even chose the models. Street photography is completely different, you have very little control over anything except where to point your camera.

When I arrived I was shooting with a Fujifilm Xpro3 and was curious about the Ricoh Gr iii as it is a camera Eric is passionate about. I have come from shooting with a Nikon D4, D800, D7000, Sony Ar7, Fujifilm X100t, and then the xpro3. And video with the Canon EOS C100 and various other Canon camcorders, and about 5 Gopro 3’s. In addition, I have shot with every consumer drone DJI has ever had.

So to challenge me into adapting to the environment Eric suggested we swap cameras and go shooting. Its a fairly simple camera to learn and it has USB-c connectivity, which is a surprisingly convenient bonus as most of my electronics share that port. He also suggested shooting on extra small jpegs. I have a 24TB hard drive at home where I hoard my 150,000 large raw files.

Shooting with Stan Hudecki in Myungdong

I am not a professional photographer in the sense that I do not make a living from my photographs. Photography has been a creative outlet for me for many years. When I exercise my creativity I have learned that I become more focused and can think clearer. It reduces stress in my life. I am flooded with ideas when I am exercising my creative brain. I used to get asked to photograph this event or that event and my answer was and is always “I’m sorry, I’m not that kind of Photographer”!

As photographers, it’s easy to fall into all the hype of being a professional and buying this or getting that new shiny thing or gadget. I fell into this trap often. So being handed a camera and being told to shoot in B&W XS jpeg was just painful for me. I always shot in raw with the “what if”. What if I decide later that I want to publish these pictures in a book or something? Keeping photographs that could be printed in billboard size is just not necessary.

So off I went with this little camera shooting in B&W. Setting limits like this really opened my mind. You owe it to yourself to go street shooting with Eric Kim as he is a very different Street Photographer as he interacts in a way that I have never seen before. He has a very unique style about him. He approaches life and photography as a child would, without hesitation.

XPRO 3 SEOUL ERIC KIM

It was amazingly fun and I loved the GR iii so much I purchased one. On day 2 we were joined by Vu, another photographer whom I hit it off with right away. This kind of instant connection is foreign to me because at other workshops I have attended the focus seemed to be on whoever had the best gear, the fastest lens, and the most expensive camera. This was was nothing like that, we all just got along and could talk photography.

To give you some background, Just months prior to this I had grown tired of my photography and given away all my gear besides my XPRO3. My wife and I had sold our house to downsize and moved into an apartment condo. My heart was not in my photography anymore so giving my gear away was not difficult.

After the workshop, I stayed in Seoul for another week and decided to travel to Thailand and stay a bit longer. Seoul and Bangkok are two very different places. For one thing, it is a lot warmer in Thailand. I continued my Street Shooting and did a couple of shoots with the Ricoh in a hotel just for fun.

Today is my last day in Thailand and I feel that my first trip to Asia was very successful. I have taken an enormous step out of my comfort zone, made several new friends and have grown as a result. I have a new view of my photography and where I want it to go. I have been encouraged to start a blog and YouTube channel which is another step out of that comfort zone we are all so fond of.

As a closing thought: The comfort zone is a great place, but nothing grows there. You need to get out and try something different.

eric kim stan hudecki red
Creative portrait of ERIC KIM, filtered with Procreate by Stan Hudecki