Mary Kang's Photo Blog

Lovely Ayub family and their new member :)

2012-01-24T23:18:00.001-08:00

Congratulation to you guys!

2012-01-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

These girls pretty much ruled, but they left me for Dallas =(

183 Bridge

2011-12-24T22:57:00.001-08:00

Birthday Party

2011-12-17T23:46:00.000-08:00

Twos

2011-12-17T21:27:00.001-08:00

Couple and a holiday tree

2011-12-08T23:42:00.001-08:00

Rafael Salazar and Katherine Jones walk back to their apartment after grocery shopping at HEB in the Brentwood neighborhood. Salazar and Jones met at the Salvation Army and consider each other as a “good provider, best friend, and emotional support.” Both were homeless for a few months after losing their jobs, but managed to find a place to live in by the help of many people such as social workers and food stamps.

Joshua Siegel and his daughter Stella, 1 year old, watches the holiday tree at Zilker Park.

Danielle

2011-12-08T23:31:00.001-08:00

My precious coworker/friend Danielle

2011-12-08T23:29:00.001-08:00

Cold rainy day

Fine Arts Library Lobby

2011-12-08T23:16:00.001-08:00

Art Outside

2011-12-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

Art Outside 2011

Man with an umbrella

2011-12-08T03:59:00.001-08:00

Occupy Austin

2011-12-08T03:58:00.001-08:00

Caitlyn Pearson cuddles with her friend for warmth in front of Austin City Hall as part of Occupy Austin. Occupy Supply, a national program, has raised money to bring items to Occupy Austin such as jackets and blankets to help them maintain their protests during the winter.

Shonnan and Sean Dubbs prepare to sleep at the Austin City Hall as part of Occupy Austin. "Everybody deserves every right. Not all of us are drunk and drug addicts. Some of us lost jobs," says Shonnan.

Fall 2011 Sports

2011-12-08T03:56:00.000-08:00

Few sports shot from this semester..

Engagement Photos in New York

2011-11-29T00:03:00.000-08:00

These are from few weeks ago. My friends Liz and Jeong are getting married and asked me to shoot their engagement photos in New York! The trip was amazing even though it was short. So many good foods up there . Also, after getting lost several times, I became confident riding subways.
The only thing was that the day we decided to shoot happened to be the only bad weathered day, even though we checked the weather before :/
I mean snow was awesome, but then it turned into a blizzard.
I fell down twice as I was shooting these, but it's funny to think about now. It was actually quite adventurous and memorable experience.
Anyways, congratulation you two! And thanks again for inviting me over.

And some mobile photos!

River Cafe

Central Park

Lovely dining space at Gena and Charlene's

With lovely hosts

The most difficult chicken you'll ever eat at Kyochon in Korea Town. Ridiculously spicy, yet addicting

Sarahana

I met this man who slept in the corner of Dunkin Donut's at the Newark Airport while I was also stuck due to the flight cancelation, caused by the bad weather

But I got to stay longer and meet this photography celebrity Chien Chi Chang! Mr. CCC does not like being in front of a camera, and you can see him trying to dodge from me

A shaky photo of me shot by CCC

A really good ramyun noodle place

Mmm

LiNK Donations

2011-11-11T18:36:00.000-08:00

Hello whoever is looking at my blog!
I am an officer at LiNK (Liberty In North Korea) chapter in UT and there is this great website where I can ask for donations to rescue North Korean refugees. It is so well designed and informative!
So I am posting this to either ask you to donate via my fundraising page, or you can make your own page to ask for donations. Either way, it would be cool. I thought it wouldn't hurt to post this here, just in case somebody might want to - especially because my birthday is January 23rd and this can be your ultra mega early birthday present for me :p
Even a dollar or 50 cents would be awesome.

To get information about North Korean crisis, click here.

Basically, it costs $2,500 to rescue one North Korean to safely get to South Korea or elsewhere. One of the things that was most shocking to hear for me was that 80% of the female North Koreans get sex trafficked when they cross the border to China - because you see, they are very vulnerable due to such little information they have about outside the North Korea.

I would appreciate your help. If I come across rude in any way on this post, I apologize in advance. I feel like it is such a sensitive subject that I may have unknowingly said something ignorant, although I read over this several times.

On a brighter note, what I was glad to hear was that last semester, UT LiNK chapter got to rescue one person! Isn't that amazing?

Hook'em!

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011

2011-11-10T00:19:00.000-08:00

Girls

Flaming Lips

Lykke Li

Active Child

Mother and child

2011-10-05T23:21:00.001-07:00

Psychology professor Rebecca Bigler

2011-10-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Psychology professor Rebecca Bigler’s research, “The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling,” reports that there is no tangible scientific link between gender and learning.

Read more about it at The Daily Texan

The Gust Family

2011-10-05T04:10:00.000-07:00

Nicholas, Tony, Alicia and Mackenzie Gust moved into a rental house in Smithsville, Texas, after losing their home in Bastrop to the wildfires. The Gust family credits their insurance, realtors, local organizations and community response for helping them resettle in new surroundings.

Mackenzie Gust already found friends to play with in her new neighborhood in Smithsville.

Mackenzie Gust, 7, and Nicholas Gust, 2, play with toys that were donated from community response. The large amount of donations led Mackenzie to think that her birthday had been extended, as it was her birthday 10 days after the fires blew through.

Mackenzie Gust, 7, brushes her teeth while her mother Alicia Gust cleans their new house in Smithsville and helps her children get ready for bed. The Gust family received many donations from friends, family, co-workers, and even strangers.

For an article, click The Daily Texan

Jeannie

2011-10-05T04:02:00.000-07:00

Jeannie was in Arizona to visit her brother at the time the fire blew through in Bastrop.
She realized her house was on fire when her friends started text messaging her asking if she was okay.
She flew in with her brother, her son, and her daughter in law. One of her neighbors already visited the site and took some pictures so Jeannie knew what to expect.
These are the photos of them when they first came to see her burnt home with their own eyes.
Jeannie and her family came to look for some jewelries and other important objects.
Mainly, she wanted to look for a ring that her husband gave her, whom she lost to a cancer 6 months ago.

This is when they found the ring after hours and hours of searching!

She had a beautiful garden in her backyard. She started watering the plants, saying she at least wants to save what is left.

Hi, Long Time No See

2011-09-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

It's been so hard to update this blog because I am bombarded with school works and plus, I technically have two jobs right now.. It's a busy last semester! But I am trying to enjoy this chaos because after this semester, I may be graduated and unemployed...

Welp, in the midst of it all, I ran into this blog post where it has a lists of advice that magnum photographers have towards young/aspiring photographers.

It's amazing.
The one that especially got to me was the one by Alex Webb (and of course, my dear professor Eli Reed).

"Photograph because you love doing it, because you absolutely have to do it, because the chief reward is going to be the process of doing it. Other rewards — recognition, financial remuneration — come to so few and are so fleeting. And even if you are somewhat successful, there will almost inevitably be stretches of time when you will be ignored, have little income, or — often — both. Certainly there are many other easier ways to make a living in this society. Take photography on as a passion, not a career."

Amen, Mr. Webb!

Anyhow...
I worked on two multimedia piece this semester, but I am trying to go back and fix them.
Here are some previews(?) :p

The first one is on how Bhutanese and Nepali refugee communities celebrated Rishi Panchami here in Austin, TX.

Then on my second one...
I wish to cover 1.5 generation throughout my... life (?) in whatever ways I can. Brian Hwang (thanks Brian for letting me invade your space) was my first subject for it, as he is a high school student who lives with an American home-stay family while his parents work in Korea. Here are two photos, I am still working on the whole thing!

Thanks for looking.

BK & Mr. E

2011-09-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

Shot for the Daily Texan

Bethany

2011-09-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

Advertising Campaigns

2011-08-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

Warning: Some of these can be offensive? Sorry.

These are my advertising campaign projects. Not necessarily done for a class, although I took Texas Creative Portfolio course. And my work there really sucked! So I didn't move up to the next level =[. But I did these this summer just to have an advertising portfolio. All of them had to be in three parts.

1) Dr. Scholl's Campaign

For this Jesus one, I don't know if I'm going to be going to hell for it or not... Sorry Jesus. I really love you though.

2) LaCie Campaign

3) Chi Hair Straightener Campaign

4) Liberty In North Korea Cause Poster (This one was for journalism design class, so there's just one)

Um ... and I have to say special thanks to Christine Choi for helping me choose the right words on some of them :)
And my awesome graphic designer friend Steven Abraham for giving me critiques on these! Oh yeah by the way, check out his website. It's amazing. http://www.steveniskomm.com

I am no designer, but I tried! For my classes..

2011-08-29T04:57:00.000-07:00

This one was designed for art director's seminar class I took last semester. The assignment was to choose a website and redesign their main page. If this design was to be real, the photo in the middle is supposed to rotate with different pictures :p

Radical Face CD cover redesign assignment

City Harvest is a food rescue organization in New York that collects food from restaurants, cafes and farms. Then they deliver these foods to hungry men, women and children FOR FREE! How nice of them, right? And so for this logo design, I thought of heart tree (?) whether it looks like it or not. Haha. And then since NY reminds me of subway, I tried to make the root look somewhat like a subway map.

This assignment was to come up with a local magazine design. I chose mine to be music, art, and culture magazine. Then as cheesy as it sounds, I named it "Austale." Get it? Austin + tale = Austale? haha. haha. haha.
I kind of wanted to make it real so I photographed my friend Jennifer Choi who created that awesome mask for the cover. She has a deep meaning behind it and you can see more about her design here.

Then a design of one of the contents that was to be in the magazine.

Lesson I learned about design: IT TAKES FOREVER! Even if it looks really simple. I give a lot of credits to actual designers. Really. Even newspaper layout designs. I don't know how you guys do it.

Dallas

2011-08-19T12:50:00.001-07:00

From 2009

Propose

2011-08-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

I shot an event where the guy was proposing his girlfriend. He basically set up a scavenger hunt for her with animals because she loves animals. And the last animal to find was this turtle with a ring on top of it! The whole time I thought this was just too sweet. They are lovely together and I like how they look like best friends :)

Federico Archuleta

2011-08-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Multimedia about Austin graffiti artist Federico Archuleta

Federico Archuleta from The Daily Texan on Vimeo.

Allen Otto

2011-08-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

At Allen's studio!

2011-07-20T13:34:00.001-07:00

2011-07-06T23:20:00.001-07:00

I finally got a website!

www.marykangphoto.com

:)

Just something I want to remember

2011-06-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

War letter found in this boy's pocket during the Korean War .

1950 년 8월 10일 목요일 날씨 쾌청

어머니.

나는 사람을 죽였읍니다.

그것도 돌담 하나를 사이에 두고 10여 명은 될 것 같습니다.

나는 4명의 특공대원과 함께 수류탄이라는 무서운 폭발 무기를

던져 일순간에 죽이고 말았읍니다.

수류탄의 폭음은 나의 고막을 찢어버렸습니다.

지금 이 글을 쓰고 있는 순간에도 귓속에는 무서운 굉음으로 가득 차

있습니다.

어머니...

적은 다리가 떨어져 나가고 팔이 떨어져 나갔습니다.

너무나 가혹한 죽음이었습니다.

아무리 적이지만

그들도 사람이라고 생각하니 더욱이 같은언어와 같은피를 나눈

동족이라고 생각하니 가슴이 답답하고 무겁습니다.

어머니

전쟁은 왜 해야 하나요?

이 복잡하고 괴로운 심정을 어머님께 알려드려야 내마음이 가라 앉을 것 같습니다.

저는 무서운 생각이 듭니다.

지금 내 옆에서는 수많은 학우들이 죽음을 기다리는 듯

적이 덤벼들 것을 기다리며 뜨거운 햇빛 아래 엎드려 있습니다.

적은 침묵을 지키고 있습니다.

언제 다시 덤벼들지 모릅니다.

적병은 너무나 많습니다. 우리는 71명 입니다.

이제 어떻게 될 것인가 생각하면 무섭습니다.

어머니,

어서 전쟁이 끝나고 어머니 품에 안기고 싶습니다.

어제 저는 내복을 손수 빨아 입었습니다.

물내 나는 청결한 내복을 입으면서 저는 두가지 생각을 했습니다.

어머님이 빨아 주시던 백옥 같은 청결한 내복과 내가 빨아 입은 내복 말입니다.

그런데 저는 청결한 내복을 갈아입으며

왜 수의를 생각해 냈는지 모릅니다.

죽은사람에게 갈아 입히는 수의 말입니다.

어머니,

어쩌면 제가 오늘 죽을지도 모릅니다.

저 많은 적들이 그냥 물러 갈 것 같지는 않으니까 말입니다.

어머니,

죽음이 무서운 게 아니라,

어머님도 형제들도 못 만난다고 생각하니 무서워지는 것입니다.

하지만 저는 살아가겠습니다. 꼭 살아서 가겠습니다.

어머니,

이제 겨우 마음이 안정이 되는군요.

어머니,

저는 꼭 살아서 다시 어머니 곁으로 가겠습니다.

상추쌈이 먹고 싶습니다.

찬 옹달샘에서 이가 시리도록 차가운 냉수를 한없이 들이키고 싶습니다.

아! 놈들이 다가오고 있습니다.

다시 쓰겠습니다.

어머니

안녕! 안녕!

아 안녕은 아닙니다.

다시 쓸 테니까요.

.......... 그럼.........

-------------------------------------------------------------

이 일기는 1950년 8월 포항전투에서 숨진 소년병 이우근의 일기다.

이우근은 국군 제3사단 소년병으로 포항여중 앞 벌판에서 전사했다.

이일기는 그의 주머니 속에서 발견됐다.

그리고 71명의 학도병은 전원 전멸하고 말았다.

-------------------------------------------------------------

일기는 그의 주머니 안에서 발견되었으며,
이글은 어느 여군 정훈장교에 의해 기록되어졌고,
처음에는 수첩의 핏자국으로 인해
글씨를 알아보기 힘들었다 합니다.

_________________________________________

2011-06-18T17:25:00.001-07:00

Tumbleweed Laundromat, Marfa

2011-06-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hear Here

2011-06-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

2011-06-14T23:06:00.001-07:00

Kadel Family

2011-06-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

AKPC-Choir

2011-05-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Chandra - Graduation Photos

2011-05-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

2011-05-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

2011-05-14T01:50:00.001-07:00

Lillipow

2011-05-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

2011-05-10T13:10:00.001-07:00

2011-05-10T12:50:00.001-07:00

2011-05-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

Ogden Payne

2011-05-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

Local teen rapper Ogden Payne.

http://www.reverbnation.com/musicispayneful#!

Phone Photos

2011-04-27T02:29:00.000-07:00

Random window hanging from a tree

Kashish

Allen

Sahara

Sarahana

Nasha

Alphabet homework

Daily Texan meeting

2011-04-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Choi

2011-04-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Jennifer Choi, currently a design major at UT, made this awesome Refuge head for one of her projects!

2011-04-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

So I've been looking at Nirrimi Hakanson's photos a lot and wanted to imitate her style so I tried it with Jessica's portrait down there. I mean I probably can't get what kind of photoshopping job Nirrimi did on her awesome/beautiful eerie portraits, but you know.... I'm just a starter on it (excuse excuse!).. Anyhow I wanted to see how my attempted photoshopping would look on journalistic stuff so I played around with this shot - ignoring the journalistic rules and all - which is fun.
I'll probably upload more stuff like this. Who knows if I'll eventually get tired of it or in the future I might think that it was all silly. But for now! I think it's really fun!

Bhutanese Refugee Wedding

2011-04-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Fader

2011-04-10T01:27:00.001-07:00

Jessica

2011-04-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

Part of growing up

2011-03-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Honk!TX

2011-03-22T21:43:00.001-07:00

I sent my photos to AP and I didn't know that it went through until this nice lady emailed me this scanned version that got published in Minneapolis Star-Tribune!

Honk!TX

2011-03-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Eisley at Barbarella during SXSW 11

2011-03-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

I really liked Eisley in high school and I actually still do. I thought they have the prettiest voice that could put me into sleep :p So I was really excited to be able to shoot them when they came for sxsw. It is unfair that they have the beautiful looks as well AND when I talked to them, they were very sweet.

Newspaper design

2011-03-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

Had to work on a newspaper design for my class.
Took forever to do this one page! I have a new respect toward newspaper designers now.

2011-03-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

2011-02-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

Whaling Wall

2011-02-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

Pigeons

2011-02-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

Dupree

2011-02-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

In high school, I was a huge fan of Eisley and I found out recently that they had another sister!
How can somebody have such beautiful voice?

Iris and Dottie

2011-02-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

Design Class

2011-02-08T23:32:00.000-08:00

So I didn't know any basics about design and my first assignment in my journalism design class was to create a business card that includes my name, email-address and phone number. And I learned that Illustrator is real confusing/frustrating. I just cannot wait until I get all the basics down so I can create whatever images I imagine in my head! My next assignment is to pick an album cover or a book and redesign it. I really want to do well on that one because that sounds like a really fun assignment. So today I played around a little bit with a photo I took of my friend Lauren Gerson. I hope it doesn't suck too much.

I didn't know what to put in the text so I just put her blog website.
Also, I know nothing about type faces so if anyone happen to be reading this and would
like to suggest which type faces are good for when and stuff, that would be great..

Photo that I used.

My business card for the class.

Fashion Freakout 4

2011-02-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Did a multimedia piece on this with Jeff Heimsath. It was actually my very first multimedia for the Texan! I thought editing audio was so hard... it somehow took me more than 3 hours to edit. Hopefully I will get used to it and become more efficient at it!

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/content/fashion-freakout-0

Emma Watson look alike?

Snow in Austin!

2011-02-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Students playing outside around 3:30 a.m. in the middle of their studyings.

Tried that Daido Moriyama thing that Bill Reeves introduced me to

2011-02-02T14:43:00.001-08:00

Penson Family

2011-02-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

2011-01-31T22:20:00.000-08:00

I love smelling my mom too

2011-01-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

2011-01-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Just few of my favorite songs as of now for my future self and etc.

Depeche Mode - Shake the Disease

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round

Tenniscoats - Baibaba bimba

Homeless Count

2011-01-26T00:37:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, I got to follow Travis County Homeless Count to shoot photos as an assignment for the Daily Texan (student newspaper at UT). More than 200 volunteers showed up for this annual event, but I only got to follow one group since I had to run to my next assignment. What they do is that they would walk around their designated areas to search for homeless people in order to count how many there are and to fill out the survey. The data gathered in the surveys are to be used to gain more federal grants for homeless issues.
To find out more about it, click The Daily Texan.

When we saw this, we thought this is where some of the homeless people live. But we couldn't find anyone and couldn't conclude whether this place was for homeless people or artists. Or maybe it is art created by group of homeless people. Who knows. I'm actually thinking about going back there, but probably not by myself because I don't have guts to.

We saw some traces of them though

Then we found George Steffey.

He told us that some tragic event happened to his family when he was 8 and so he was raised in a foster home. Then after he became homeless and it has been difficult finding a job.

Pro life rally

2011-01-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

"More than 1,000 pro-life supporters marched to the Capitol steps Saturday on the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in support of legislation that would require women to see an image of their unborn fetus before attempting to get an abortion."
-The Daily Texan

Hindu Wedding

2011-01-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

Part of Nepalese refugee community in Austin.

New York trip 9

2011-01-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

This Sweet Potato cake in Korea town is amazing

Ippudo. This place is impossible. Got told to wait over 2 hours every time we tried to go.

I didn't take this shot. I'm not sure who?

Cheers for 2011!

New Years dinner party

This awesome photo is taken by Gena

Art created by Gena, Christine and I

Rachel and Gena and bubble teas and spoons and straws

Successful art director who tried to talk me out of advertising major

Goodbye New York!

New York trip 8

2011-01-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

It's the same snowman! =(

Our lovely host, Gena, who has been so amazing.

Gena and I

New York trip 7

2011-01-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

New York trip 6

2011-01-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

New York trip 5

2011-01-13T15:35:00.000-08:00

New York trip 4

2011-01-13T15:13:00.000-08:00

Bottles and buildings

New York trip 3

2010-12-28T01:25:00.000-08:00

Dope bicycle

Caleb!

New York trip 2

2010-12-27T23:06:00.000-08:00

China town

Minca!

Japanese ramen noodle made of miso soup and kimchi. It is the most expansive ramen noodle I've ever had, I wanted to cry.

It is supposed to taste good with this hot sake. It was my first time trying sake and I did not like it at all...It is just like soju, in which both taste like rubbing alcohol!

But I'm smiling for the picture

Maru, Korea town

Pocha, Ktown. Cutest place I've been to! Even the restroom is cute!

With Steven and Rosa

New York trip 1

2010-12-21T23:12:00.000-08:00

War story via hipstamatic app on iPhone.

2010-12-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

"The photographer takes the picture, not the equipment. Few people care what kind of typewriter Hemingway used."

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/finding-the-right-tool-to-tell-a-war-story/

2010-11-28T01:07:00.000-08:00