Looking Up With an iPhone: An Architecture Photo Walk at Apple Jamsil

At an Apple Store, you can sometimes see a small session under way in one corner. Today at Apple offers instruction in using the devices, but what drew me in was the time set aside to make something with them.

You might take photos on an iPhone, draw on an iPad or edit video on a Mac. The sessions are free to join, with a reservation. At a large store like Apple Myeongdong, you are likely to notice the session in progress. At Jamsil, it is easy to walk past without realizing one is happening.

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A Small Group at Apple Jamsil

The Jamsil store is smaller than the one in Myeongdong. That made the session feel easy to walk into. There were five or six of us moving together.

The rest of the shop went on as usual, with customers trying products or talking with staff. The session felt like a quiet class in a corner of the room.

I could try something new without having to make a big occasion of it.

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A Photo Walk About Framing Buildings

I joined a Photo Walk on framing architecture. We started with a simple question: what would make a photograph of a building more interesting to look at?

The session lasted around ninety minutes and began inside the store. We talked about angles, the direction of the light and what to include in the frame. It was as much a lesson in noticing what was there as it was a lesson in taking the picture.

We used iPhones. The exercises assumed that the camera you already had was enough to try out the ideas.

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Working Indoors on a Rainy Day

The plan was to photograph buildings outside. It rained that morning, so we walked around the inside of Lotte World Mall instead.

We all covered the same ground and came back with different pictures. Someone photographed a pattern repeating along a wall. Someone else looked for the light coming through a window. The difference was visible in what each person had noticed.

I stopped for things I would ordinarily have passed on my way through.

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The Two Photos I Brought Back

We picked two photographs each and returned to the store to look at them together. We also explained what had led us to take them.

My first photo looks up from an escalator in Lotte World Mall. I happened to glance at the ceiling and saw a shape that reminded me of an iPhone case. I took the picture before the escalator carried me farther.

I took the second from the passage between Lotte World Mall and Avenuel, facing Seokchon Lake. Rain had left one side of the glass wet while the other was clear. I wanted something on the clear side as well, so I drew a mark on the glass with my hand and took the photo.

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Seeing What the Others Saw

At the end we looked at everyone’s pictures. The most interesting part was hearing why people had chosen to take them.

We had been in the same building, yet the photos looked as though they came from different walks. What made the difference was where we had chosen to look.

I left with the impulse to stop for a second before I take a picture.

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Joining a Session

The session I attended was free. I made a reservation with my Apple account and did not need to bring special equipment.

Even if you do not think much about photography, a session like this gives you a reason to look again at a place you see all the time. I went back to a mall I knew and came away with a ceiling I had never noticed.