Early morning in Seoul, Korea is a perfect time to check out an old Temple

I flew into Seoul late on Wed afternoon and, in normal Jeff Cable style, checked out the area before getting something to eat and then getting some sleep (since it was 4am West Coast time). It turns out, that right across the street from our hotel, there is one of the older Temples in the city. So, me and my dreary "stuck in a tin can for 12 hours" foggy brain, ventured over there to take some shots. It was really dark and I did not have my tripod so I just snapped a couple of frames.

I took this image at ISO 5000 and relied on the ambient light from the candles to light the woman's face.

And then, since I woke up at 5:30am, I made my way back out to the Temple with my tripod. You can see my hotel (the Coex Intercontinental) on the right side of this image.

This is the entrance to the Temple. You will notice that everyone has umbrellas, since it has not stopped raining since we got here 4 days ago.

I took this shot from under one of the old structures. I love the composition showing both the old and new buildings of Seoul.

I shot this image because I liked the light coming from inside the upper Temple building. Since it was still early in the morning, there was just enough contrast between the ambient light outside and the light inside. Literally, 5 seconds after I shot this frame, all the lights were turned off for the day.

Great color and details in the old architecture.

I saw this solitary man praying in the Temple and loved the way that the pattern of pillows leads the eye to him.

In the main Temple building, there is this huge wall of gold statues. I took many images of this wall, trying to focus on different elements of the scene.

This is one of my favorite images of the wall. I shot this image at an aperture of 5.6 to limit the depth of field. I only wanted a select portion of the image in perfect focus, with the foreground and background soft (drawing the eye to the middle of the image).

And to leave you with something a little different. Here is a shot with me (on the left) and a couple of my videographer friends getting ready to shoot in a clean room.