I live in Seoul, I was just alerted to this thread by John Nanian. I hadn't logged in here for a while.
The first thing to point out is to be careful about street shooting - the "portrait rights" (초상권) of an individual are stressed in South Korea. I can't find a reference in English to explain it, but my understanding is that a photographer should assume
they do not have the right to take a photo containing a recognizable portrait until they have permission of the "model" (or passer by). There's a bit of information in this article, though a little garbled:
http://www.humanrightskorea.org/2013/freedom-of-expression-vs-violation-of-portrait-rights/
http://www.humanrightskorea.org/2013/freedom-of-expression-vs-violation-of-portrait-rights/
Street photography doesn't seem well regarded here. For example the shutter sound made by smart phone cameras cannot be muted on phones sold in South Korea. Be careful!
If you want to buy film here, the place to look is Chungmuro. There's a district with a bunch of film camera shops, and Ilford / Fuji emulsions are available. Better to bring film though, it's all
much cheaper in the US. The camera shop owners on the whole are often not friendly. It turns out that most of them have no interest in selling anything - they are retired guys who run shops to show off their camera collections, in some cases. The best place to get film is:
http://www.saeki.co.kr/
That shop is also in Chungmuro, and is the official importer for quite a few brands, including Ilford. They keep a range of films in refrigerated shelves, but stocks vary...I've not been there in a little while.
About places to visit...hmm. Seoul changed hands a few times during the Korean war and got smashed to bits, so there's not much of anything old remaining. Everyone will recommend the touristy stuff (Palaces, Gwangwhamun, Insadong, Seoul Tower, fried chicken at Han river). So it sounds like you'll want to avoid all that! Most districts are dominated by steel and concrete tower blocks. There's a lot of air pollution.
I quite like Seoul Tower, but it is the definition of touristy Seoul:
http://www.nseoultower.co.kr/eng/
If you do go up the tower, time your visit a bit before sunset. The base of the tower can be reached by cable car, or you can walk up the rather small mountain.
I do recommend a visit to Gwangwhamun and the main palace area. There's almost no point not going. There might be an exhibition on there, last year while I was in New York I did a bit of online searching for Ansel Adams exhibits only to find that there was an exhibition on in...Gwangwhamun, a few subway stops from where I live in Seoul (the AA exhibition is long gone, not sure what's on in November).
https://www.sejongpac.or.kr/eng/main/main.asp
There have also been some good exhibitions in the southern side of the city, at the Seoul Arts Center:
http://www.sac.or.kr/eng/
Psy made Gangnam world famous (Gangnam literally means "river south" - it's the area of Seoul to the south of the Han river), but I don't like the place. I think most taxi drivers would agree that there's nothing to see there, except traffic jams.
Itaewon is the small "foreigner town", but it's less foreign feeling than it used to be these days. It's home to prostitutes, transgender prostitutes, gay bars, muslim grocers, Turkish ice cream sellers, foreign restaurants of varying quality, a mosque (I think the only one in Seoul), a couple of English bookstores and was formerly a major base of the US army. There are still a good few US soldiers around off duty. It's also less visually interesting than it sounds. There's also a private art museum in Itaewon:
http://leeum.samsungfoundation.org/html_eng/global/main.asp
It houses the art collection of the family that owns the Samsung corporation. The building itself might be of interest.
The national museum is near Itaewon, along with the Korean war memorial museum.
Myeong-dong is the shopping capital. There will be many Chinese duty free shoppers there. It could be so visually unattractive that you think it's photographically good. Or not.
There are tours to the DMZ, maybe about $50? There are restrictions on photography there of course. I believe one of the selling points is that the tour operators will not be held responsible for your death or injury in the event of war breaking out while you visit. I've not actually visited Panmunjeom (the border village on the DMZ where soldiers from south and north face off) because South Koreans aren't allowed to visit - so I can't go with my wife.
Mountain photography is big here. There's a Korean photography website here:
http://www.slrclub.com/
The gallery on the front page will be enough to give you an idea about some popular subjects locally (in short, mountains).
Should you happen to be in the vicinity of a demonstration while here, just get away from it. A farmer protesting against government handling of a maritime disaster was knocked over by a jet from a water cannon and died after almost a year in a coma. Some details here:
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/766225.html
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/766225.html
It's unlikely you'd get caught up in a demonstration (I've never been near one), but you might as well read about it. Riot police here generally aren't scary, by the way - most of the riot police I've wandered past were young guys doing their compulsory national service, and looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.
Hmm. I must have forgotten stuff or not covered something the OP wanted to know about. I should ask my wife. Please ask more questions, or feel free to PM if needed.
