아름다운 세상

At a snack stall beside the Hangang River Park at Yeouido.

I always feel that people who enjoy what they are doing are beautiful. They may wear a smile or look serious but somehow these people always seem to exude an air of beauty. A beautiful life is then a life lives by these people, something which I always like to capture in my pictures. Scenery pictures, no matter how beautiful they may be, do not appeal to me as much as a picture of a person who is living a "beautiful life". Though such picture is difficult to capture, the opportunity to capture it is actually in abundance. I always try to be discreet when taking such picture fearing that I will alarm the subject and they will stop what they are doing and stare at me. I have come to realise that "life" is best captured when it is left undisturbed.

In the picture above, a smiling "ajumma" was giving the change back to my friend who bought a stick of sausage. The sausage was actually wrapped in a layer of dough skin, covered with bread crumbs and deep fried. I don't know what it is called but it seems to be Korean's answer to hot dog. You can see many sticks of this sausage fried to golden brown at bottom right of the picture. According to my friend, the snack didn't turn out very nice as thought. Perhaps it was left in the open for a long while after it was cooked. So how much more can I show you the life of people living in Seoul than to show a picture of them living their life. I appreciate that a picture speaks a thousand words. Here it is, my "thousand-word" description of the "beautiful life" of a Seoulite.