Photographers Blog

By Lee Jae-Won

Chuseok, or the Full-Moon Harvest Festival, also dubbed the Korean Thanksgiving is one of the country’s biggest traditional holidays. Nearly 30 million out of South Korea’s population of 50 million will visit their hometown during the three-day holiday which ended October 1.

The Imjingak pavilion, a well-known tourist destination, is located just south of the demilitarized zone which divides the Korean peninsula into the capitalist South and communist North. It is the closest point to the inter-Korean border, where visitors are allowed to observe the North’s territory from the South without any specific government approval. The northern tip of the Paju city which the Imjingak area belongs to is only 130 miles south of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

South Koreans who were born in North Korea before the fratricidal 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with a truce pact, not a peace treaty, come to the Imjingak pavilion to remember and pay tribute to their ancestors as they are banned from crossing the inter-Korean border freely to visit their hometowns in the North.

The number of South Koreans registered with the government as separated families was more than 80,000 as of September 2012. North Korean defectors who recently arrived in the South also visit the pavilion to pay homage to their deceased ancestors. The number of North Korean defectors living in South Korea now exceeds 24,000.

In June, 2000, then South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il held a historic inter-Korean summit in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. The two Koreas have held more than twelve rounds of family reunions since that summit. Nearly 22,000 separated family members from both Koreas, who had not seen each other since the Korean War, have met through the reunion sessions their governments organized mainly around traditional holiday seasons.

By Bobby Yip

A ten-day media tour to North Korea is a challenge for the authorities, as well as a challenge for the press. As one side tries to highly control what should be seen and who should be interviewed, the other side tries to show the world what the reality is.

Except visits to scheduled events, in most cases photographers are not allowed to walk on the street to take photos. Many of my images were shot through the window of a media bus or on one occasion through the window of a train. Watching the street scenes and the village scenes along the way, I felt an isolation between the people and me. I also sensed the isolation between the people themselves. It is the ideology behind the surface which distinguishes North Korea from many other countries, and it shows on the streets.

Events arranged for the media to cover are colorful.

North Korea surprisingly opened their rocket launch pad, as well as the control center at the site and another on the outskirts of the capital for media visits.

Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj won first prize in the World Press Photo Daily Life Singles category with his photograph of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung on a wall in Pyongyang.

Below, he recounts taking the photograph.

“After days of excitement and lots of rare pictures in the provinces, I came back to Pyongyang without big plans for shooting in the capital. All I wanted were some moody general views of the city. This is probably the easiest big picture I shot for a long time – it was taken from the window of my hotel room in Pyongyang early morning, just before the sunrise. I knew that portrait was there and I insisted with our hosts to get a room on a very high floor facing that direction. So, all I had to do is to wake up early in the morning, make a coffee, light a cigarette and make sure I exposed well. The scene has this eerie look for maybe 5 to 10 minutes, then the revolutionary songs and propaganda speeches from loudspeakers wake the city up.”

Canon 5D Mark II, lens 70-200mm, f4, 1/60, ISO 800

Caption: A picture of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung decorates a building in the capital Pyongyang early October 5, 2011. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

By Kim Kyung-Hoon

Nobody knows when and where death will visit us.

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il shows that this phrase applies to everyone. Death is inevitable, even for an absolute ruler who was believed to be an eternal creature in his reclusive kingdom and who provoked the international community with a nuclear weapons program and brinkmanship.

(Kyodo photo)

Hours after the tearful announcement by North Korea state TV of their Great Comrade Dear Leader’s death, I was on a flight from Tokyo to Seoul to reinforce our Seoul bureau. On the flight, I recalled the chaos when North Korea’s founder and Kim Jong-il’s father Kim Il-sung died in 1994. At that time, most Koreans were haunted by fear of a possible outbreak of war. This fear made South Koreans rush to shops to stockpile basic necessities. It also triggered an intense debate between conservatives and pro-unification activists who insisted on a condolence call for the main culprit of the Korean civil war. My mother stayed awake at night worrying about the outbreak of war because I was supposed to go to mandatory military service in just a few months.

However, what I found after landing in Seoul was different from what I had worried about and imagined. There were no empty shelves and no fierce clashes between riot police and pro-unification activists on the streets. Signs of chaos and rejoicing over the death of a mortal enemy were hardly seen in my country as Seoul cautiously responded to the abrupt news that came at the end of 2011.

By Lee Jae-won

South Korea is surrounded by the sea on all sides but one. The country is virtually an island as it is bordered to the north by reclusive North Korea.

There is only one place, called a truce village, where South Koreans and visitors can see the border and soldiers from the secretive state.

Panmunjom, about 55 km (34 miles) north of Seoul, is considered one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. It is located in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the 4-km (2.5 mile) wide buffer that runs along the heavily armed military border.

By Carlos Barria

I never imagined that a simple image on a piece of paper could have the power to transform someone’s suspicious look into an expression of surprise — the kind of surprise you might see on a child’s face as they watch their first magic trick.

But I saw this transformation a week ago, when I joined a group of journalists on a trip to North Korea. I brought a Polaroid camera along with the idea of taking a few portraits. I wanted to be able to offer these portraits to the subjects themselves.

I’ve always liked the idea of trading something with the subject of a photograph. I take his or her picture, or image, and in some circumstances, it seems appropriate to give something back. I can’t pay them, so ideally I send them a copy of the picture by email.

If you are planning to take an exotic vacation, maybe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is your place.

A week ago I joined a group of foreign journalists and a delegation of Chinese tourism agents on a trip highlighted by a cruise that left the port area of North Korea’s Rason City and headed south to the country’s famous Mont Kumgang resort. To get to the ship, we took a bus from China to a border crossing in Hunchun. Before we arrived at customs, our Chinese guides collected our mobile phones. North Korean authorities don’t allow foreigners to carry any type of mobile communications.

When we crossed a bridge over the river Tumen Jiang, which marks the border between China and North Korea, we passed from a modern highway to an unpaved country road.

I was listening to a radio programme about the history of military music (please bear with me) and a woman recounted a story about the first time she heard the "Last Post" being played at the Cenotaph in London on Remembrance Sunday. The woman (sadly I don't remember her name), said that what really struck her was that after the moment of total silence was broken by the first notes of the Last Post she knew that every one of the thousands of people standing in Whitehall would be sharing the same thought - that of someone who they had loved and lost. Three stories this week put me in mind of this woman as I looked at images of people grieving for lost ones. The difference being that for each person lost the world was watching their story albeit only momentarily; the crushed people in Cambodia, the miners in New Zealand and the four people killed by the shelling by North Korea of the tiny island of Yeonpyeong.

People are crushed in a stampede on a bridge in Phnom Penh November 23, 2010. The stampede killed at least 339 people late on Monday and wounded nearly as many after thousands panicked on the last day of a water festival, authorities and state media said. REUTERS/Stringer

At 3.30am on the 24th I received a call from the desk telling me that that hundreds of people had been killed in Cambodia during the water festival. The picture I saw horrific, young people twisted together, some dead and some alive, panic in their eyes as people stampeded to try to leave an island linked by a bridge.  The picture of the people in the act of dying reminding me of the images from the Hillsborough soccer disaster in 1989 when fans were crushed to death in steel cages as more fans tried to crowd into the game, photographers pitch side only needing turn around to take these pictures, unable to help as the life was squeezed out of them.

Questions immediately filled my mind when I learned I would be part of a Reuters team heading to North Korea to cover a ceremony, where it was rumored Kim Jong-il’s son and heir apparent would make his debut.

- Would I be able to take pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il? No photographer outside North Korea had taken his picture for a while.
- What access would I have to the parade? I worried they’d put us in some corner far away from the action.
- How would I transmit my pictures? Some people said we wouldn’t have Internet connections.
- Where would we sleep? I had heard there are two good hotels in Pyongyang, but one is on an island and difficult to leave without close supervision.
- Would I be able to shoot photos of ordinary street life?

Upon landing in Pyongyang with about 70 other members of the international media, we went through the passport and custom control where we handed over our mobile phones. I took a couple of pictures at the airport and no one said anything.

North Korea opened its doors and the internet to the World's media to allow a glimpse of the parade which marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party. More importantly, it gave the world its first independent look at the protege Kim Jong-un. China based Chief Photographer Petar Kujundzic took full advantage of the opportunity.  The warmth of the picture of the women soldiers smiling - a rare glimpse into the world from which we normally only get formal, over compressed and pixelated images.

North Korean female soldiers smile before a parade to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang October 10, 2010. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic

Female North Korean soldiers march during a military parade to commemorate the 65th anniversary of founding of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang October 10, 2010. Secretive North Korea's leader-in-waiting, the youngest son of ailing ruler Kim Jong-il, took centre stage during a massive military parade on Sunday, appearing live for the first time in public.      REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic