positively meek.
The road skirted south of Nam San, two thousand feet of rock and flora that leaned over downtown Seoul, its dash of natural greens and browns a welcome relief from the cityâs man made landscape of concrete and glaring glass.
I hardly put money in the taxi driverâs hand before John Lee locked onto my forearm and hauled me towards the hotel.
âHurry â the reception is starting.â
I squinted through the lobby crowds at the bank of clocks above the front desk. New York, London, New Delhi, Singapore â Seoul.
âYou said 6:30. Itâs only 6:15.â
âMr Schwartz is looking for you.â It was delivered thick with reproach. Typical. I arrive fifteen minutes early, and because the PR flunky has his knickers in a knot, itâs my fault.
While we weaved through a moving forest of dark suits, red ties and highly-polished slip-ons, I slung one camera around my neck and another on my shoulder, zoom lenses already attached. Ahead of us burnished steel doors swept open almost on cue, and along with half-a-dozen businessmen we swept into the elevator. It was decked out in the standard deluxe hotel interior of stainless steel and badly-lit photographs of Mr and Mrs Stylish suffused with joy at the delights laid on by various hotel outlets. I had just enough room to attach flashguns to cameras. At least I didnât have the worry of what film to use. On a job like this, shooting digital was the only sensible option.
The doors slid open and Lee bowed his apologies to the six silent Koreans as we pushed on towards the function suite.
A herd of Press photographers and television cameramen stood to one side of the wide entranceway, corralled behind thick red ornamental ropes. Some of them trained cameras towards the guest arrivals, impatience all over their faces. Lee led me straight past them, and twenty pissed-off stares followed me.
Eyes still on the media pack, I ran chest-first into a brick wall. A Korean brick wall in a cheap blue suit, who didnât move a millimetre when I hit his outstretched hand at full chat. Built like a rhino and twice as ugly, he wore the miniature radio earpiece beloved of security forces and pub door hardmen the world over.
â Whereâs the Yankee bastard going ?â he growled in Korean, painting grins on every last face in the Press corral.
A flash of embarrassment darkened Leeâs face before he pulled out a security pass and looped it around my neck, where it immediately became entangled with my cameras. A new wave of Press Corps grumbling followed us into a function suite bigger and considerably more crowded than a football field.
Ben Schwartz materialised from nowhere and as he fired off instructions without preamble, his appraising gaze swept back and forth across the room. He nodded respectfully towards Asian guests and flashed an outstretched hand, politician-style, in acknowledgement to Westerners. My job description for the evening held no surprises. I was to photograph the more obviously important people as they sipped cocktails, then make sure I got good shots of the speakers at the official announcement. Schwartz and Lee would help me identify the key faces, and I knew what that meant: every few minutes I would be dragged across the hall to catch another crucial spontaneous grip-and-grin. Photographing cloudless skies would be more interesting and a lot less demeaning.
The mostly male crowd worked hard at small talk and the giving of face. About one-fifth of them were Western businessmen and diplomats high on the social circuit, ever on the lookout for new friends on the inside track of Korea, Inc. The targets of their earnest gazes were all Korean, middle-aged or older, most of them trim, neat figures who contrasted sharply with their counterparts, many of whom looked damaged by life on the cocktail circuit.
I split from Schwartz and Lee and did my rounds. It was easy to identify the more important guests by
The road skirted south of Nam San, two thousand feet of rock and flora that leaned over downtown Seoul, its dash of natural greens and browns a welcome relief from the cityâs man made landscape of concrete and glaring glass.
I hardly put money in the taxi driverâs hand before John Lee locked onto my forearm and hauled me towards the hotel.
âHurry â the reception is starting.â
I squinted through the lobby crowds at the bank of clocks above the front desk. New York, London, New Delhi, Singapore â Seoul.
âYou said 6:30. Itâs only 6:15.â
âMr Schwartz is looking for you.â It was delivered thick with reproach. Typical. I arrive fifteen minutes early, and because the PR flunky has his knickers in a knot, itâs my fault.
While we weaved through a moving forest of dark suits, red ties and highly-polished slip-ons, I slung one camera around my neck and another on my shoulder, zoom lenses already attached. Ahead of us burnished steel doors swept open almost on cue, and along with half-a-dozen businessmen we swept into the elevator. It was decked out in the standard deluxe hotel interior of stainless steel and badly-lit photographs of Mr and Mrs Stylish suffused with joy at the delights laid on by various hotel outlets. I had just enough room to attach flashguns to cameras. At least I didnât have the worry of what film to use. On a job like this, shooting digital was the only sensible option.
The doors slid open and Lee bowed his apologies to the six silent Koreans as we pushed on towards the function suite.
A herd of Press photographers and television cameramen stood to one side of the wide entranceway, corralled behind thick red ornamental ropes. Some of them trained cameras towards the guest arrivals, impatience all over their faces. Lee led me straight past them, and twenty pissed-off stares followed me.
Eyes still on the media pack, I ran chest-first into a brick wall. A Korean brick wall in a cheap blue suit, who didnât move a millimetre when I hit his outstretched hand at full chat. Built like a rhino and twice as ugly, he wore the miniature radio earpiece beloved of security forces and pub door hardmen the world over.
â Whereâs the Yankee bastard going ?â he growled in Korean, painting grins on every last face in the Press corral.
A flash of embarrassment darkened Leeâs face before he pulled out a security pass and looped it around my neck, where it immediately became entangled with my cameras. A new wave of Press Corps grumbling followed us into a function suite bigger and considerably more crowded than a football field.
Ben Schwartz materialised from nowhere and as he fired off instructions without preamble, his appraising gaze swept back and forth across the room. He nodded respectfully towards Asian guests and flashed an outstretched hand, politician-style, in acknowledgement to Westerners. My job description for the evening held no surprises. I was to photograph the more obviously important people as they sipped cocktails, then make sure I got good shots of the speakers at the official announcement. Schwartz and Lee would help me identify the key faces, and I knew what that meant: every few minutes I would be dragged across the hall to catch another crucial spontaneous grip-and-grin. Photographing cloudless skies would be more interesting and a lot less demeaning.
The mostly male crowd worked hard at small talk and the giving of face. About one-fifth of them were Western businessmen and diplomats high on the social circuit, ever on the lookout for new friends on the inside track of Korea, Inc. The targets of their earnest gazes were all Korean, middle-aged or older, most of them trim, neat figures who contrasted sharply with their counterparts, many of whom looked damaged by life on the cocktail circuit.
I split from Schwartz and Lee and did my rounds. It was easy to identify the more important guests by
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