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| Spice seller's shop, Sorrento, August 2018 |
Monday, 22 October 2018
Spice shop
I don't know about you but when in holiday mode I'm focussed more on my loved ones than on a camera but I always feel guilty if I don't take a few snaps when I’m away somewhere new. I'd spied this particular scene a few nights earlier (it was near our favourite restaurant in Sorrento) and on our last night I excused myself for a few minutes and ventured forth to snap something up:
Lost in the shadows there's a little girl sitting the doorway down the alley but it was the spice seller's front-of-house that caught my eye. 9.5"x12" print on Foma paper, lith developer.
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That's a very good framing of a charming street. The spice seller's shop looks like it might not have changed for decades. Some coffee shops and restaurants in Korea spend a fortune trying to achieve a similar feeling.
ReplyDeleteThanks Marcus. I think you're probably right about the shop in the photograph - the stone building in which it is housed looks suitably old and authentic. I guess if your town hasn't got, or kept, it's historical buildings then you've got two choices - go ultra-modern, or mimic something old. But there's no substitute for the real thing and in Italy you certainly get that, in spades. Everywhere you look you see relics from a time when the country must have been incredibly wealthy. The buildings and artefacts have by and large been kept as they were and the stonework&marblework has aged beautifully. It's shabby chic a lot of the time - the paint is peeling and the whole thing is slowly decaying around you, but that's part of the attraction for me - it's all real.
DeleteMany parts of Korea were destroyed during the war and the country was dirt poor for a couple of decades after that. Then came the modernisation of the economy by the dictators, who were only interested in getting buildings up as fast as possible to make things to sell to other countries. This resulted in buildings that are nothing more than concrete rectangles. Most traditional buildings these days are houses owned by old people who don't care about them. And their children will likely tear down the houses and sell the land to developers when the older generation is gone. There's nothing wrong with redeveloping a bad neighbourhood, but most buildings these days are concrete and prefab facings. There's nothing of Korea in them. It's a shame, because traditional Korean architecture is beautiful, and it'd be nice if some of that design were included in city buildings.
DeleteIt’s easy (for us Brits/Irish) to forget about the Korean War - we weren’t involved (except perhaps through UN) and I guess the UK was still reeling from WWII. What you say makes sense, Marcus and yes I can imagine traditional Korean architecture is something special. Unfortunately we know all about the dash for ££ here too - virtually all our great houses from the time when the linen industry was in its prime have been demolished, replaced by 1950s concrete boxes. Nowadays any large house with a bit of land around it gets sold, torn down and in its place go 50 townhouses&apartments. England does a far better job at keeping its historic buildings.
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