When I was first handed the task of co-ordinating user-generated images for Reuters, I was inundated with pictures of people and their pets and newborn babies. They werent exactly the pictures we were striving for when we launched You Witness News.

Now, I am pleased to say, I am seeing some high-quality images from major news events and global sports stories.

What I wasnt expecting was an insight into a secret society such as North Korea. Images by aspiring photographer Nora Stribrna raised the bar on user-generated content.

Nora, a Czech native and air stewardess on a private jet of a member of the Saudi royal family, tells the story behind the pictures:

North Korea opens its border twice a year to showcase its Arirang Mass Games, where it celebrates its military might and communist ideology. My ex-boyfriend is a photographer and he alerted me to this opportunity to visit the isolated nation. After applying for visas for us both at the North Korean embassy in Prague, he attended the mandatory How to behave in North Korea lessons that the embassy held for upcoming visitors. As I was not in the country, I missed hearing first hand all the useful tips, like what to wear (long sleeves and no shorts) and how not to be extravagant.

So we flew to China and were off: 23 foreigners on a 26-hour train ride into North Korea. The train was poor, devastated and dirty but we all expected it. When we reached the Chinese-Korean border, we all became scared. Nothing was allowed to be brought in, so we all left our mobile phones and computers in China, all books and weird items as well. Every person was searched properly, bag by bag, person by person, and many questions were asked by immigration officers. After being searched and questioned for six hours, we had some time to kill.

My first shock: everybody in green, gray and black uniforms, nobody spoke, heads down, silence, few bicycles, dark atmosphere, everywhere guards and police, barking dogs, fear. But there was revolutionary music playing, trying to make people happy.

We traveled with three official escorts, who were there to observe, control, listen to and ask us a lot of questions. One of them even spoke Czech to be sure they could understand what we said to each other.

Pyongyang, the capital, is made for the world to see how rich North Korea is. There are some buildings, airports and a few hotels. There are no shops or supermarkets. People are given vouchers for food, and are given few clothes a year. All uniforms. There are no other clothes.

We traveled to the north and south and saw indescribable poverty, peasants taking care of rice, guarded by police and military, just to make sure nobody would escape. Everything is black, gray, brown. People never put their head up.

One of our guides quizzed me on the members of our group: asking what is their occupation, their purpose for coming to North Korea and what the journalists in our group were planning to publish. I was asked to tell them to publish only good things about the regime.

After five full days, our initial laughter had passed. All except one of us had lived in communist states and we all remembered those similar days. Nobody really spoke on the plane back to Beijing. I only remember, we all got very drunk that night back to China. And we were very grateful for water and electricity. Very. We could speak! And we could say whatever we wanted.

You can see more of Nora’s pictures from North Korea here