This past Friday was the kickoff of Lady GaGa’s “Born This Way” tour.

Lady GaGa has been likened to Madonna, a female singer challenging society’s suppression of female sexuality. While female sexuality is still generally supressed, even in the West, both artists have had an impact on the way society addresses female sexuality.

While Western attitudes have shifted over time, Korean society still remains highly repressive towards women’s sexuality. It is very common, for instance, for a woman in her late 20s to have to live with her family and stick to a curfew set by her father. Almost no unmarried couples live together, and a woman is never supposed to come to a man’s home because of the risk that sex could take place.

So how do you think the Koreans reacted to Lady GaGa’s arrival in Seoul? Let’s take a look.

“We pray to God that the concert will not be realized so that homosexuality and pornography will not spread around the country.”

-Kang Ju-Hyun (article link)

Well, God let the concert go ahead, which maybe says something about how he feels towards Korean society’s suppression of women.

The Christians have never been ones to shy away from a controversial issue. I admire this about them. A lot of Canadians are too lazy to rise up against something they don’t believe in (except in Montreal, that is). Christians have always been good at facing controversial issues head on. The Korean Christians are no different.  They are, much of the time, just as fanatical as the American Christians, and sometimes just as crazy. Hearing that Lady GaGa was coming to town, they decided to band together and rise up as a united holy force against an evil that threatens to destroy Korea’s culture of purity. Lady GaGa is, after all, the reason Koreans become gay and the source of pornography within South Korea.

“We, Korean students, are hereby warning Lady Gaga, who has performed sexually perverted acts on stage in the name of freedom of expression, to stop her vulgar concert and go home . . . we will stage a massive protest near the Seoul Olympic Stadium and will ask other youths around the world to participate in the (anti-Gaga) campaign via social networking services.”

- statement made by the Student Alliance for Safeguarding Korean Culture

But while the Christians talk a big talk, sometimes they fail to walk the walk. Hearing about the massive protests that were going to take place, I made my way to Olympic Stadium to take photos of crazy Christian protesters. What I found was a few people with signs and a group of young adults singing about Jesus. Not exactly the massive demonstrations they were calling for. Still, there was almost enough craziness to make for a half decent blog post.

Yes, Lady GaGa is most definitely a Freemason, and she will soon take advantage of the hoards of fans she commands and use them to take control of world governments in a homosexually pornographic way.

While the Christians failed to show up in any significant numbers, there were a lot of interesting fans. I was disappointed that I traveled all the way to Jamsil to take photos of massive demonstrations that just didn’t happen, but when big talking Christians serve you lemons, it’s best to make lemonade. I used the time to sharpen my street photography skills and came off with some good pictures. Click on an image to see a larger version of it.

While in the crowd I noticed that people were being lit up with a red light. I was pretty amazed at how the red glow looked against the sky and wanted to get as many quality pictures in as I could before the light went away. I began snapping like crazy, getting some really interesting shots and didn’t question where the light was coming from. Two or three minutes later I noticed that the car I was leaning on was trying to backup. Whoops.

I made a couple rookie mistakes with some of the above photographs. At first I didn’t check my camera’s setting so was taking photos in manual mode, and letting way too much light into the lens. Notice the guy up top holding the beer? The colours are washed out because of my oversight, but the photo isn’t good enough to spend time fixing. I also didn’t bother zone focusing, which cost me a couple great shots I would have otherwise had.

All of these photos were shot with my Nikon D5100 and my 35mm 1.8G DX lens. Together, the combination is proving to be a capable performer. I’m glad I put money into the lens since many of these photos would have been impossible with the normal 18-55mm kit lens.

I’ve been doing more street photography lately, and am really starting to like it.