Palace to Protest 3 -More Photos and Overall Thoughts

1. As soon as the first shoving match took place, a lot of people took off. As soon as the riot helmets came on, a bunch more people called it a day.

2. A met a nice couple from Seoul. They didn't speak any English and I was trying to get them to tell me what was happening. I couldn't understand their explanation, but the guy did tell me to have fun and take lots of photos.

3. Saw a funny couple from Japan. The man had a SLR and the wife had a point and shoot. She seemed to be really angry that the man wanted to shoot more of the protest. He was in the middle of the road and she was standing by the sidewalk yelling for him to hurry up(I guess).

3. There were a few members of a health organization stationed outside the protest. There were there to attend to any one's injuries. They were the only people that I tried to photo that were not happy with having their picture taken.

4. The commanders of the riot police must have their own bodyguards. I noticed that when they would walk up and down the line they each had an officer with a shield that would follow them.

5. There were a number of riot policemen in pads and street clothes. I wondered if they got called up from a holiday or maybe they are new and haven't had a uniform issued yet.

6. There were many older riot policemen. I didn't expect this. I really thought that all of those guys were young men doing their mandatory military/police service.

7. I didn't get any photos, but you could tell who was there to cause trouble. These guys were already wearing bandannas and carrying what looked like sword cases/long sticks.

8. The police had video and cameras mounted on long poles that they would use to video and photo any skirmishes. Some of them hand held cameras as well. I guess to document what happened.

9. I loved watching the professional photographers work. I have a picture of one of them who brought along a hardhat just in case. It was also interesting to watch the teams with laptops and handheld cameras providing live-streaming video on the net.

10. I got bumped my a riot officer with a shield. Actually, I got pushed in to him when the riot police behind me changed directions. He looked at me and was pretty surprised to see a white guy. I really thought he was going to yell and tell me to get the hell out of the way, but he just looked up and said hello. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

11. The young riot policemen were really young. They didn't look much older than many of my middle school students.

12. At one point some of the protesters were running up and trying to scare some random officers. The police were only videotaping them. I thought how different this would be in the States. I probably would have seen rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and maybe someone would have gotten tazered.

13. A jumped on a bus to make my way back to Gangnam. It was pretty surreal watching the protesters run alongside the bus being chased by the riot policemen.

14. Random people driving were not to happy that they were being blocked by police and protesters. I saw a few of them get out of their cars to yell at whoever was blocking their way.

15. I hate that I didn't bring my flash with me. My whole goal for the day was to go take some photos around the palaces and I was going to work on some HDR stuff, so I had attached my tripod to my bag. My shoulders are aching today from slinging that bag around all day.

16. I should have been more aggressive in getting closer to the action, so that I would have gotten better photos. The one time that I was really close to some shoving; I couldn't get my camera up fast enough before I was surrounded by people.

17. It was quite an adrenaline rush to watch the first shoving match. Actually, it was quite addicting and I wanted to get in there and get more photos. I really should have been thinking more about how to take good pictures. I took a bunch of horrible photos because I was just trying to press the shutter. I was in M mode and those photos did not come out good at all.

18. I gotta learn to focus on people's faces more and get tighter shots. I wasn't able to use the zoom lens much because of the low light.

19. I saw a few other random foreigners taking photos. I really wanted to talk to the guy with the canon with the L lens.(maybe 24-125mm or 24-70mm), but I was going in a different direction. (Maybe I will see his photos on Flickr)

20. It was an interesting day and if I ever see one of these again, I hope to get some better shots.