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I arrived at the studio late. My flight had only landed two hours prior, but I had to go to my hotel first to check in and drop off luggage. Unsure of how my first night would go, I opted to leave my cameras in my room. The weather was cold, but not like I expected. I suppose my Korean friends had hyped it up a bit too much. I followed the directions supplied on the Gom TV website and found the studio in no time. The studio itself is smaller than it appears on camera, but then all TV studios are. It is housed on the 2nd floor of a high school gym. Upon entering you will see the Korean casters on the right and English casters on the left, with the audience in the middle. Beyond all this are the player benches and booths. A large screen in the front of the room displays the Korean stream, while a monitor to the left of the crowd shows the English broadcast. I opted not to get the English broadcast headset, a wireless device provided to foreigners free of charge, as long as you have an ID to check it out. Hot 6ix is also available but I gave up caffeine long ago. One night I saw a kid with 8 empty cans by his feet, I wasn't sure how he was still sitting down. I took a seat near the back to watch the final two matches. I regretted not having my cameras.  MC advanced that night while Leenock, one of the favorites, did not. After the matches were over I made my way back to my hotel, almost an hour away by Subway, and quickly succumbed to my jet lag.
It was a little colder the next day, certainly a stark contrast to the days I spent on the beach in Hawaii before getting to Korea. My suitcase contained an odd mishmash of clothing, board shorts and base layers, tshirts and heavy jackets. I had slept in a bit, then took some time to unpack and find food. I will admit that when I travel, I often fall back on comfort food, and that most often comes in the form of fast food and western chain restaurants. It's easy to find and easy on the wallet. That's not to say I didn't eat a lot of Korean food, but KBBQ is much better with friends than on your own. I headed back to the GSL studio, this time with my gear. There were clearly more foreigners in the crowd that night, most I would assume there to support HuK. HuK doesn't like me taking his picture, he has told me as much before. I don't know if it's just me or he doesn't like having his photo taken in general. If it is a case of the latter I feel for him, I try to stay behind the camera myself and avoid being in front of it. I'm still a fan of his though and him being back in the booth for Code S is newsworthy and I had a job to do. It was great seeing Bomber playing like he used to and I think Sniper losing was another shocker for people. I got to shoot Sniper for his GSL win the previous season at IPL in Vegas. I had a chance to talk to a few people at the end of the night. Foreigners seem to cluster together in the audience. There was an American grad student in the crowd I had seen the night before, doing research on Korean game culture. I also met Whiplash and supernovamaniac, the two English Proleague casters. I went back to my room and tried to edit some photos but didn't last too long before I passed out.
I awoke early Friday morning to snow, just a light dusting, but more than I am used to living in Southern California. I finished editing my shots from the previous night, and then with plenty of time before the nights games, I made a trip to check out a Korean Costco and pick up food for my room. I had a stovetop, though it was small and the supplied pan was badly warped. It hindered my ability to cook as much as I had hoped but at least I would have some food on hand. After Costco I made a trip to COEX mall. COEX is a fairly large mall in Gangnam (yes THAT Gangnam), with all the requisite stores, restaurants, movie theater, aquarium, and kimchi museum. I wandered around long enough to waste some time and then headed back to GSL. I quickly fell into a routine for the days I went to Code S. Wake up, edit photos, get food, go to the studio, go home, rinse and repeat.
I made my way to the studio a little early on Tuesday the next week to say hi to Ryung. Ryung is a really funny guy, I had made friends with him while he was staying in LA last summer. He told me he had seen me on the proleague cast a day or two prior. Being on camera in the audience for proleague is a hard thing to avoid for foreigners. Miya and Alicia were both there with Ryung and I didn't recognize Alicia at first with his new hair style. The nights group was a tough one, PartinG, LosirA and Byun. Parting and Losira advanced.
The next day I had to get started early because Code A qualifiers were running in the morning. I got to Sindorim Stadium at 11am to shoot that and then left a little early to get to MokDong for Code S. Wednesday had the largest crowd of the Ro32. There were seats set up in the lobby because there wasn't enough room in the studio. This was probably the night I was looking forward to the most. Mvp hadn't been to any NA events since I started shooting and he is easily one of my favorite players. The night started out with Mvp receiving his Nestea award, and ended with him falling out of Code S. It was bittersweet for me, to see Mvp play, then also see him lose. My only hope is that now he can take the time he needs to heal, and then rise back to his former dominance.
MarineKing steamrolled through his group. His medivac micro against Keen was completely un-necessary but a thrill to watch. Manner mules are great, but manner micro is a much better way to stick it to your opponent. In the end I was grateful that Mvp didn't show emotion when he lost. If I had to take pictures of a defeated Mvp, I probably would've died a little inside. Thursday was going to be another sad night as we again saw another giant fall. This time Nestea failed to make it through his group, instead we had Taeja and Soulkey advance. I was very happy for Taeja, he has also been having wrist problems but he looked very strong. Nestea's games just didn't look good. It was very disappointing because he had been playing well leading up to that night.
Friday was another packed house with the Frenchman Stephano making his Code S debut. Stephano looked better as the night went on but in the end INnoVation just had him figured out. DongRaeGu is always exciting to watch and he was in top form. This was my last night at GSL so it was a little sad. I wish I had been able to be there shooting the first two nights but the first half of my trip did not allow for it. I was still able to shoot 6 of 8 nights of the Ro32. I want to thank Mr Chae, Chung Kwon, Tasteless, Artosis, Wolf, and everyone else at GSL for being so great. Some additional photos can be found in my GSL - Code S Gallery on Flickr. If you happen to be in Seoul for any reason, I highly recommend making it out to the studio at least once. It's easy enough to get to and admission is free. Grab a seat and make some friends while you enjoy some of the best games of Starcraft anywhere in the world. During the season games run 4 days a week, Tuesday through Friday. There are some restaurants in the area and a 7-11 almost across the street. You can bring in food but please be tidy, they want to go home at the end of the night and not clean up a bunch of trash. Also, if you do go, hope that the games run past 10pm. 10pm is snack time at GSL and they hand out snacks to everyone there.
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Hong Kong9179 Posts
This might be one of the best detailed community views you can get of the GOM studio without physically being there, thanks for sharing.
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
heyyyy, nice pics man! impressive camera too ;p
i have a d3s + 24-70 but lately too busy to use it T_T glad that you can use yours well haha
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I've always wondered how the GOM Studio looks like (y'know everything that isn't shown on the English Stream). Thanks for taking this pictures, now I hate not being in Korea even more 
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What an incredible experience. Thanks so much for sharing with us, and fantastic shots as always. Can't wait for part 2!~
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Those LosirA pics, he's so happy, and so tired 
I'd love to have the chance to shoot MokDong too, I'm extremely jealous. So well done, thank you for sharing!
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Nice inside view of the GOMStudio, and so jealous of your trip to KR! Thanks looking forward to part 2.
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Really impressive! What are you shooting with?
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Its been said already, but for science... what camera are you using? Because these are amazing pictures.
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Was a pleasure meeting you CarltonBeener, good luck with life and may our paths cross again.
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Thanks guys. My primary goal for this was to show people a little more of what esports is like in Korea beyond what we see in the streams. I didn't have time to get all the coverage I wanted but hopefully I can go back soon. Most of these were shot on a Canon 1DX and some on a 1Dmk4. If you click through on a photo to Flickr it should show you the exif so you can see which body and lens I used. The full set is here in case it's hidden in the blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/globexcorp/sets/72157632708323930/
Justin, it was awesome meeting you guys and I'm sure I'll see you again!
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Great blog, thank you for sharing! The pictures are really good quality, and really helped visualize the studio for me. Hopefully I can make it out there one day!
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On February 08 2013 12:21 CarltonBeener wrote:Thanks guys. My primary goal for this was to show people a little more of what esports is like in Korea beyond what we see in the streams. I didn't have time to get all the coverage I wanted but hopefully I can go back soon. Most of these were shot on a Canon 1DX and some on a 1Dmk4. If you click through on a photo to Flickr it should show you the exif so you can see which body and lens I used. The full set is here in case it's hidden in the blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/globexcorp/sets/72157632708323930/Justin, it was awesome meeting you guys and I'm sure I'll see you again!
Oh wow that is not what I expected to hear but makes sense given how good the photo's look. Really pricey/great camera
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Hong Kong9179 Posts
On February 08 2013 12:50 JLew wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2013 12:21 CarltonBeener wrote:Thanks guys. My primary goal for this was to show people a little more of what esports is like in Korea beyond what we see in the streams. I didn't have time to get all the coverage I wanted but hopefully I can go back soon. Most of these were shot on a Canon 1DX and some on a 1Dmk4. If you click through on a photo to Flickr it should show you the exif so you can see which body and lens I used. The full set is here in case it's hidden in the blog http://www.flickr.com/photos/globexcorp/sets/72157632708323930/Justin, it was awesome meeting you guys and I'm sure I'll see you again! Oh wow that is not what I expected to hear but makes sense given how good the photo's look. Really pricey/great camera
The camera is important but without someone skilled to meter, frame, shoot, and edit the shot doesn't exist. Giving credit where credit is due is important here. As such:
On February 08 2013 13:29 a9arnn wrote:
Awesome job Carlton :D!
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are you professional photographer? Cuz normal hobbyist doesn't really use that high end camera.
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So jealous! And ohmygod that LosirA picture, what a fucking cutie.
Great pictures, looks like a lot of fun!
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Thank you so much for the pictures. I really like when people do this for a passion and share it with all of us that can't make it over. Also nice camera :D
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Wow, great photos! Really jealous right now.
Also is that CoCa's and Puzzle's signatures I see? Still so sad about them retiring.
Finally, would you mind if I used the pictures of MKP for Liquipedia? The site is as far as I know not for profit but of course you can't use copyrighted material without permission. I just think these awesome pictures would vastly improve the often entirely text based player pages of Liquipedia.
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wow, these are great pictures! I always wanted some pictures like this on the GOM studio thx
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Thanks for this, as itsjustatank said, this must be the most detailed description of the gomtv studio you can get!
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Great pictures, very detailed
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United States97276 Posts
Nice pictures! It looks and sounds like a lot of fun. I hope I get the opportunity to go sometime. I'm interested what the new studio will be like when they move in March.
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Elison,
I have a few photos floating around on liquipedia but I'd rather not contribute more right now, only because it's the first place people go to source photos but they never follow the licensing. It's a really big problem right now really but thats a topic for another thread. MKP at least already has some good photos on his page. I'm certainly open to it in the future if the situation changes.
Shellshock,
I heard something about a new studio. I'm hoping to find a way back there later this year to do a more in depth project so maybe I can shoot the new studio also.
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On February 09 2013 19:02 CarltonBeener wrote:
Elison,
I have a few photos floating around on liquipedia but I'd rather not contribute more right now, only because it's the first place people go to source photos but they never follow the licensing. It's a really big problem right now really but thats a topic for another thread. MKP at least already has some good photos on his page. I'm certainly open to it in the future if the situation changes.
I understand, thanks anyway for your consideration!
Shellshock,
I heard something about a new studio. I'm hoping to find a way back there later this year to do a more in depth project so maybe I can shoot the new studio also.
Looking forward to it.
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sick pics Carlton. Thanks for this.
people weren't kidding when they said that studio is so tiny, there's only 12 chairs hahaha.
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Awesome. I wish I could go there myself.
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Awesome! Thank you so much!
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Huk looks good
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Those are amazing shots, you are a fantastic photographer. I hope someday I can get a camera as nice as that!
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