I decided to call this post “Visual Silla” because it contains images captured while visiting South Korea. The Silla were one of the three great kingdoms in the region. It reigned for almost 1000 years. A lot of the things that you see, from historical sights to common day to day images reflect in some way the legacy of the wonderful Silla Dynasties.

You could capture many images in that country that would look fantastic in the travel books, but I wanted to give you, the person reading this blog and looking at my images, a more intimate and personal perspective of what I saw. It is a beautiful country, and I wanted to give my own “photographers” perspective.

I captured with my camera many scenes, but only choose a few that really grabbed my attention and mesmerized me. The ones that make me stop and look again.

A group of the photographs were taken at Songdu beach near Busan, on the southeast corner of Korea. Every year they have an art festival in the beach and I was very fortunate to be there at that time. Huge pieces of art, scattered all over the sand provided me with enough visual stimulation to capture unique sights. I focused in many of the details of the pieces, the light, and the textures. I had a very spontaneous image when I got close to some students, probably on an excursion to see the art. They were having lunch and when they saw us they started to greet us, but when I raised my camera, they all reacted at the same time – some covered their faces, some laughed – it was one of those nice and warm moments. You will also see a photograph from the famous Busan fish market.

Seoul is a wonderful city. It is a big, very cosmopolitan city. It does however have unique places that reflect the temples and palaces of the Silla epoch. An oasis of calm within a bustling city.

The photographs that I selected from Seoul include images from a street performance of a traditional Korean Dance as well of some images from the taken inside the teas houses at Insadonggil Street, fall images at the gardens of the Royal Palace and pictures of the numerous temples in the city.

Even though all Korea is stunning, probably the place I enjoyed the most was Gyeongju on the southern part of the country.

Gyeongju is a Unesco Protected Heritage Site. It was the center of the Silla Kingdom. There are images from the Bulguk-sa temple which were striking. I was highly impressed a courtyard in the temple which has thousands of little mounds of rocks. The contrast of the rocks in the different shades was magnificent. The gardens and the fall colors were impressive. One of my favorite photographs is of an image taken at the forest in the “Namsam Natural Park”. It is a unique visual that gives you a supernatural feel and if you look at it from different angles it will give you different feelings.

Korea and especially Icheon are famous for its ceramics. My wife is a great potter and we could not leave Korea without visiting the 2011 Gyeonggi Ceramix International Biennial. I was blown away by the quality of the ceramic pieces showed there. Besedes the ceramic exhibition was an exhibition of glass pieces. It also provided some images that captured my imagination.

I hope you like the photographs you are about to see. As before I have put them all in the video below but please go into My Photographs/Visual Silla, at the link above, to take a greater and more intimate and closer look. It is worth it.