All too often when I’m browsing Tumblr, I’ll find a photograph that I just have to know the story behind. Is it real? Can I go there? All that stuff. And then you look beneath the photo for some information and find a whole lot of nothing. No source, no name, no location, nada. But this time, I wasn’t going to let the photograph and its story stay trapped in perpetual out-of-context image abyss (I’m looking at you Tumblr).
Dozens of pages deep into Google image search and I finally arrive here, a blog about cameras that tells me this giant Rolleiflex is a South Korean coffee shop named Dreaming Camera (Korean: 꿈꾸는 사진기) photographed by a Tumblr user changjeans.
I google ‘Dreaming Camera coffee shop‘– nothing. I google “꿈꾸는 사진기” … and bingo.
This is the website of Dreaming Camera, a coffee shop in Yangpyeong County, east of Seoul. The entire site is written in Korean and since I don’t happen to have a South Korean assistant on hand, I’ve blindly google translated all the text to fish out a very rough idea of the story…
From what I gather, this is a mom and pop coffee shop, built by a former air-force helicopter pilot with a passion for photography and a bit of DIY (just a bit). The giant camera coffee shop was his dream for several years and it finally came true when he built it right next door to the bungalow he shared with his wife.
Two stories high with panoramic and round windows, this is a pretty surreal place to have coffee…
And who wouldn’t cross the earth for tea time churros?!
Pictured above are the owners living the dream…
They have a daughter, who no doubt has the coolest birthday parties in the neighbourhood…
And their little dog whose name I can’t pronounce in Korean.
Another Tumblr mystery solved. The awesome giant camera café really does exist and they even have a Facebook page with the opening hours and exact location for the next time you feel like grabbing a coffee inside a Rolleiflex in South Korea.
Images from the Dreamy Café’s blog.
