"Azure Umbrella"
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Date: June 2023
Photographer: Ryan McGraw @theryanmcgraw @ryanmcgrawphoto
Affiliation: Undergraduate Student
Azure Umbrella
Category: Places
Award: People’s Choice and Honorable Mention
2023 International Photography Exhibition
“I took this photo during my academic year abroad in South Korea. I had just gotten back to my apartment from a large electronics store in Seoul where I had bought a new zoom lens for my camera. After attaching the lens to my camera I pointed it outside my 6th floor apartment window while zooming in on various signs and people walking down on the streets below. It was a cloudy day and raining, and I noticed that almost everybody had a black or transparent umbrella except for one man who was carrying a bright, azure blue umbrella. I was able to quickly snap a photo of him before he rounded the corner and disappeared from view. When I opened the image in Lightroom I wanted to highlight the gloomy atmosphere of that day and how the man carrying the azure umbrella in particular stood out amidst the sea of monochrome umbrellas. I’m really happy with how this photo turned out especially because I shot it almost completely by chance.”