∴Serial Music Update #2∴

Over the course of 2024 I’m putting together 12 photo booklets featuring pairs of images made here in Korea. I’ll release one a month from the start of 2025. This project is called Serial Music.

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The very first goal I set for Serial Music was that by the end of January I would have made 275 pairs. I’m happy to say that as of last month’s final Sunday I’m set with 284. I overshot on the pairing a little bit, but that’ll be useful for this month which is a little shorter. It should be said the majority of that pairing was done toward the end of last year with me being anxious to get started. Nevertheless, I’m happy with having made 70-odd pairs last month.

All the pairs I’ve made, stacked on top of each other.

Looking now at my notebook, past-Chris was perhaps a touch ambitious in deciding the-month-of-February-Chris would raise the total number to 350. Here are my two stacks of unpaired images, one landscape(57) and the other portrait(60).

And this is what they look like spread out on my table.

This doesn’t bode well. Even if I pair each one of these images I’d only just be making my quota for the month. That said, I have another 3 rolls of film to print, 1 to be developed, and a warmer week or two ahead¹, so I should be able to get out for a few photowalks and make some headway toward my goal of 350 pairs by February’s end.

As for the image-pairs themselves, here are a couple for you:

I’ve plotted a loose arc for the story I’m trying to write as well. I mostly spent last month figuring out what I want it to be about and what the characters would be like. I’m aiming to put together a rough draft of the first chapter or two over the next few weeks. I said this before, but if I’m not happy with how the writing is turning out, I’ll cut it. I’m fairly sure I’ll know if it’s working within the next few months.

Showing some of the recent pairs to a photographer friend recently, he stared for an uncomfortably long time at them before saying, “So, it’s just because of the colour, right?” Dammit, this is something I’d been worrying about. A lot of the pairs I’ve made have colours that compliment each other. Maybe I’m a simple guy, but it just feels better that way. That said, while I’m mindful of colour that jibes², I’m strict about the pair needing something more if it’s going to make the cut. Here’s a pair he directly referenced:

And here it is with the colour boiled down a bit:

Broadly speaking, in the case of this image I’m working with complimentary colours (blues and yellows) and I’ve deemphasized much of the rest of the colour wheel. So that’s one thing.

But here are some of the other things I’m noticing:

• Similarity (and a telling dissimilarity) in body shape, especially arms and shoulders

• Both eye-lines leave the frame in an interestingly divergent way

• There are subtle shape repetitions in the background

• There are blatant shape repetitions in the foreground

• There’s something going on with the table and the boxes

• I can add one or two more. Can you?

But then there’s another thing, and it’s not as much to do with how these images look. The woman on the right is in a tough situation, financially. She’s stacking boxes for the pennies she’ll get recycling them. The man on the left was working on the edge of a neighbourhood currently being demolished and where apartments will soon stand. The woman is flattening a box labeled Cass³, which is Korea’s most popular beer, and the man is stirring a stick of Maxim powdered coffee⁴, which in terms of cultural cachet is second only to the aforementioned Cass. There’s a small-scale construction/destruction quality to the actions in these images, as well as cultural allusions, which for me are suggestive of some of the larger-scale struggles Korea has within itself. I even see it in the slight - but distinct - variance of their postures, as they perform tasks that are, to me, quintessentially Korean.

I chatted with both of these people, for quite a while. They were welcoming and generous with their patience at my limited language skills. That cup of coffee being stirred was for me. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that there are degrees of subtlety to what can be noticed in a photograph. And there are some things that are just pretty obvious. Something I’m trying to take with me is that this is true of everything I see and everything I experience - there’s a little I get and a lot I don’t. This thinking has been one of the major drivers behind me starting on this project. I haven’t really explained what got me started on all this yet, but I will, in #3.

Until then,

Chris

1. A positively balmy 6°C!

2. I thought it was ‘jives’ too.

3. It is not tasty.

4. See above.