18 WEDNESDAY

APRIL 15, 2009 COMMUNITY

Expat Living is a section dedicated to

the daily living of expatriates. It is printed
on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
To share stories about your life abroad,
send stories or story ideas to Matthew
Lamers at mattlamers@heraldm.com
Submissions may be edited for length
or clarity.

Find a community
with Meetup.com
Rob Ouwehand
Communities
Wishing for community is all
well and good, but actually get-
ting out and connecting is the
hard part.
Especially for expats who live
PHOTO CHALLENGE — Gwanaksan Night Light — The view from Gwanaksan, behind Seoul National University, is not as well known as the views from Namsam or outside of the usual foreigner
Bukhansan, but is just as impressive on a beautiful evening. Xu Xiaoqing hideouts (Itaewon, Haebang-
chon, etc.), and work five or six
days a week, it gets hard meet-
tend can contact each other
through the site, and even re-
view events. If a group in your
area for your interest does not
exist, you can request to be no-
tified when somebody forms
one.
Meetup.com is free for users.
However, to run a group costs a
monthly fee. The nominal fee
turns out to be a good thing, be-
cause it’s easy to get lazy and let

In focus: manual mode

The Photo Challenge is spon-
sored by Hyosung Camera
(English: 010-7203-9599) and
Babo Shirts (www.baboshirts.
com). Winners of the weekly com-
petition receive a 50,000 won
store credit at Hyosung Camera
and a Babo Shirt. To take part
in the competition, simply up-
load your photo at
www.flickr.com/groups/seoulp
hotoclub — Ed.
By Aaron Raisey
In the previous three weeks,
we have looked at why we need
to stop being automatic and
twist that dial on the top of your
DSLR a bit more.
We looked at what the aper-
ture is and how we can use it
creatively, what shutter speed
can mean to our photography
and this week we’re going to
turn it a little further and click
into manual mode. Most casual
photographers find manual
mode a little scary as there is no
safety net for your image, but
like most things, if we under-
stand it a bit more, it becomes
less daunting.
Q: What is manual mode?
A: In aperture priority and
shutter priority modes, you and
the camera share control of the
exposure. You work as a team —
you make your choice of aper-
ture size or shutter speed, and
the camera works to compen-
sate. In manual mode, you have
total control over both. The cam-
era lets go of the controls and
says “It’s all yours, pal,” and to
someone quite new to photogra-
phy, it can feel a bit like flying
blind. Thankfully though, at
least the camera can still do the
focusing for you.
Q: I thought manual cam-
eras disappeared about 50-
odd years ago. What gives?
A: True. The need to set
everything on the camera by
hand started to become obsolete
and unnecessary back then. And
indeed, these days the vast ma-
jority of serious photographers
— both amateurs and pros —
prefer to shoot in aperture pri-
ority mode. But having indepen-
dent control over your aperture
size and shutter speed does still
have some uses, particularly in
some special circumstances.
Q: Like when?
A: One situation that you can
very easily try yourself is shooting
at night. Grab yourself a tripod
and head for the hills (or a high
window). Set yourself up looking
over some nice lights. Click into
manual mode and because we
want everything in our picture to
be nice, clean and sharp, select a
small aperture (big number) and
the lowest ISO value.
Now concentrate on your
shutter, taking the same picture
at different shutter speeds. You
will see points of light at faster
shutter speeds become beautiful
stars with lovely long rays as
you slow the shutter down. We
are varying our speeds quite a
lot, but because we are in man-
ual mode, our aperture isn’t
changing as it would in shutter
priority. It’s staying small to
keep the picture nice and sharp
at all distances.
Ever wondered how they do
those night shots with rivers of
light painted on the roads but
not a car to be seen? It’s done in
exactly the same way. It’s very
simple, fun and it’s an excellent
way to learn more about your
camera while producing some
impressive results.
Once you get your head around
it, shooting in manual mode can
be a very creative and rewarding
adventure. Good weather is on
the way, so I recommend spend-
ing a few nights out there with a
tripod sometime.
Next week we will look at a
couple of other daunting, but
very important features of your
DSLR — the histogram and ex-
posure compensation.
(raisey@hanmail.net)
ing anyone other than cowork-
ers or other foreigners in the
neighborhood. Unfortunately,
the expats nearby don’t always
share the same interests.
Meanwhile, those elusive kin-
dred spirits are often scattered
all over the map: a lonely expat
in Jamsil might need to search
from Ilsan to Bundang, from
Nowon to Gimpo, to find others
interested in rock climbing, and
if the interest is a little more ob-
scure, say, guerilla theater en-
thusiasts or Gundam toy collec-
tors, the search might stretch
all the way from Gangwon right
to Jeolla.
When an expat only has one
or two days off a week, and must
maximize that free time, what
is to be done?
One way to bring groups to-
gether via the internet is by
forming a Facebook group;
however, for every Facebook
group that actually has a lively
(spam-free) discussion board
and regularly planned meet-
ings, there seem to be five that
have gone defunct because,
though the idea might be great,
though interests may be
shared, they never meet.
There is another website —
www.meetup.com — dedicated
to bringing hobby and interest
groups together. The site will
host an interest group, create a
space to chat and most impor-
tantly, to plan meetings and
get-togethers.
Mass e-mails get sent out,
new members are free to join,
PHOTO CHALLENGE RUNNER UP — A man hangs wishes on the site helps the organizer
lanterns in Jogyesa, near Insadong, Seoul. Rika Yunarti plan events, and those who at-
a group go defunct when you
don’t have to pay for it.
However, not many will pay a
monthly fee to run a group and
then do nothing with it.
It’s true that not all Facebook
groups are washouts, and I’d
love to hear from the ones that
do plan regular meetings.
However, for a site with a very
strong “let’s meet in real life”
drive, Meetup.com gets the edge
over Facebook.
Meetup.com has meetup in-
dexes for about 50 different
cities in Korea, meaning that
unlike Facebook, where search-
ing “Korean food club” might get
you search results from New
York, Sacramento and Munich
— as well as Seoul and Busan
— Meetup.com narrows the
search geographically.
If no groups in your area exist
yet, it’s not expensive to start
one, and it works: I have been a
member of a few Meetup.com
groups and there are 29 in the
Seoul area.
As always, if you know of, or
are part of, a group or communi-
ty that helps expats in Korea
get connected with others, send
an e-mail to Rob at
roboseyo@gmail.com with the
word “community” in the sub-
ject line, and tell me why I
should feature your group.
More of Rob Ouwehand’s writ-
ings can be found on his person-
al blog, at roboseyo.blogspot.
com, and at the community blog
he co-founded, koreasparkle.com
— Ed.

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