it’s fair to say that North Korea is one
of the most isolated least understood
places on earth part of the reason that
it is so misunderstood nothing is known
about it there’s been very few
photographs that have ever been taken
there
The Associated Press in 2011 came up
with the idea to open an office in North
Korea and I begged them to let me be the
Pyongyang photographer if it worked and
they did I went there and that meant
that I was the first Western
photographer to ever have regular access
to the country and between then and now
I’ve made about 40 almost 50 trips to
North Korea it was a very difficult
place to work unlike any other you can’t
just move around freely and do whatever
you want a guide goes with you
everywhere and they are sort of half
facilitator half babysitter
they didn’t censor what I did they
didn’t put their hand in front of my
lens but they did have a very different
idea of how I should be portraying their
country and in fact they had a very
different idea of what photojournalism
is completely the word propagandist is
not a dirty word in North Korea it’s
what they do at their news agency but I
went there I think with an open mind and
a free mind and a point of view this is
their version of NASA on the week that
the North Koreans were going to
test-fire a missile the whole world was
condemning them and saying that it was a
test of a nuclear capable rocket the
North Koreans are saying no this is a
rocket we’re going to put into space to
put a weather satellite so they took us
there so that I could photograph it this
is the best example what my job was
while I was in North Korea I was
interpreting reality trying to decide
what was real and what was not real and
I did that through photography the
content of the photography but also the
composition the humor the whimsy I
wasn’t the senior most American diplomat
in North Korea it was this guy here he
is smoking cigar in the gym helping pick
the national basketball team Dennis
Rodman I covered the spectacles in the
propaganda this was a mass synchronized
swimming event for the birthday of the
leader they were swimming or dancing to
a song called we will defend Kim jong-un
with our very lives and this is the
National Football State
and they hold this thing that they call
mass games it’s like a wonder of the
world a hundred thousand people in the
stands holding these books with colored
pages and they flip them and they create
these mass mosaics they look like little
pixels but you for the long enough lens
you can see that they’re actually human
pixels a little faces peeking over the
tops of the books eggs with legs and
sometimes you just have to photograph
whatever’s right in front of you I don’t
really have to try so hard that’s kind
of the way I worked everywhere I went
you know if they took me to a patriotic
flag factory or a school for Performing
Arts I just pretty much photographed
what was in front of me I thought it was
revealing to show how the Koreans wanted
to present themselves in their country
and over time I got further and further
away from the spectacles and away from
the Capitol and out into places that
really no other foreigners had ever been
and certainly very few photographers had
ever seen and maybe was even more
important to me is that I found my way
into people’s homes and into people’s
offices like this woman was a secretary
at the Korean Central News Agency with
her little aquarium full of fish and I
could look into people’s eyes and feel
like I actually could make a connection
to Koreans I traveled within Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright as she met
with then leader Kim jong-il we stood in
this Wizard of Oz looking Palace and
we’re all alone waiting for him to come
in the room and she’s looked at me and
said what should I do
where should I stand I said I don’t have
no idea we stood on these big flowers
and then the door open and he walked in
and it was like I’d only seen this kind
of fantasy on in a movie before and it
was like he just stepped out of the
screen into this room it was the first
time that I understood how I connected
to the that country and how surreal and
how I connected as a photographer but
also it was the first time I realized
how important the work that I could do
there if I could only invest my time and
commit to the place it wasn’t easy at
the beginning everyone watches you there
and on my first trip with Madeleine
Albright when it came out of the airport
they drew the drapes on the bus
put black plastic over the windows of my
hotel I couldn’t see out I felt like
there was nothing real out there was all
just a facade but over the years through
photography I could peek around out to
the other side of those curtains and I
came to understand that there was real
life in North Korea and through my
pictures I tried to take everybody else
on that same journey there was no better
place than North Korea to test the power
of photography photography carries
meaning and mood in ways that writing or
any other medium can’t so when this pale
pink curtain comes down just covers the
eyes of the people in Pyongyang I can
say something that I couldn’t say in
words and photography has multiple
meanings and interpretations this is
kind of how I survived there the line
that I walked this was a vocational
school for children to teach them how to
be farmers the Koreans took me there and
they were very proud to show me this
very high-tech tractor simulator of
course for people outside they see it
differently we see their care and their
love for their children but to us this
is a practice tractor with this sort of
dose level computer terminal on top we
had a lot of very tough arguments about
why did you take that photograph we saw
that picture that doesn’t make us look
good but I could always fall back on
photography I could hold it up and say
this is what I saw I was there this is
what we saw I use many different camera
formats not just to be arty but because
of the cat-and-mouse game I had to play
when I worked this is an old-fashioned
camera that don’t make anymore a
Hasselblad X pan a film camera I wore it
around my neck I had a cable release so
I could just talk and smile take
pictures and I had a little carpenter’s
level in the flash mount so I can make
sure that my horizons are always
straight and when I picked up my big
fancy National Geographic camera
sometimes people were a bit intimidated
and the guide certainly watched me a
little bit more closely but when I use
this one they would say oh that’s just
David’s old-timey camera and I did the
same with my mobile phone I took my
mobile phone and
North Korea everybody by now is a mobile
phone photographer we all are even the
North Koreans take pictures with their
phones believe it or not and I was able
to do things that I couldn’t do with my
big cameras it was normal for them to
see me with a mobile phone taking
pictures and I would also stop and
photograph things that I wouldn’t
normally notice if I was working as a
photojournalist things that you rush
past on your way to telling the news
things that are a little simple still
lives that make up the life around you
and they’re pieces of the puzzle and
explaining a country like North Korea
they didn’t allow mobile phones into the
country until 2013 he used to be I would
arrive at the country and they would
take it away and lock it up in a box
2013 they suddenly said Oh foreigners
can bring their phones into the country
not only that but they opened a 3G
network Koryo link and you could do
everything that we do anywhere with our
phones right in the streets of North
Korea suddenly I was sending pictures to
the world tens of thousands of people
following me right from a village or on
the street in that way sort of
everything became worthy of photography
worthy of my attention I think a piece
in the puzzle I started buying things
collecting things and photographing them
and putting them out on my Instagram
account I started an artefact series
North Korean artifact 101-102
this was the first one the great teacher
of journalists a book I bought in the
bookshop North Korean artifact 102
mountain mushroom moonshine hangover
chaser tea I think this one was made for
export money that was no longer in
circulation a debit card from the bank
sheet music for piano a cookbook from
North Korea here’s a good one the
intercontinental ballistic missile test
firing commemorative greeting card and
these were a hedgehog quill toothpicks I
photographed them all and they became
this sort of popular or like museum
series on my Instagram account so every
day I would go out to some new and
strange place this was a flower festival
for their national flowers the Kim Jong
Aliyah and the Kindle Suniya and I would
go back to my hotel and I would
my pictures back to the newspapers and
magazines and I would post these on
Instagram and I had nothing else to do
the only thing that I could do was watch
state sponsored propaganda on TV so I
would sit and read the comments on
Instagram and people would ask me
questions and I would answer them and
they would have all these stereotypes
and I would get into arguments and it
was my form of entertainment while I was
there they called him followers on
Instagram but it felt like that feel
like they followed me out into the field
that they were with me when I was there
they became interested in North Korea
that became invested in me and what I
was doing and it was a very different
experience that I’d ever had as a
photojournalist
so just publishing at people it was a
more dynamic conversation and it wasn’t
just Instagram I was doing all social
media with my phone in North Korea
Instagram I was tweeting I started using
Foursquare i rated did restaurant
reviews in Pyongyang and I opened up
Google Maps one day and I saw that it
was practically empty
and so through Foursquare I started
plotting red flags naming streets and
naming intersections and buildings where
else in the world can you feel like in
the 21st century feel like a National
Geographic Explorer from the 19th
century besides North Korea with a
mobile phone all I really wanted to do
when I was there was open a window onto
a country that people knew nothing about
to get past all the geopolitics and all
the saber-rattling between countries and
to show that some young army conscript
like that was a real person and to show
that there was something worth
understanding and worth discovering
there I had never photographed birds
before I’m not a I wasn’t a bird watcher
and my friends who are all conflict
photographers said you’re taking
pictures of birds like going on
of the most isolated least understood
places on earth part of the reason that
it is so misunderstood nothing is known
about it there’s been very few
photographs that have ever been taken
there
The Associated Press in 2011 came up
with the idea to open an office in North
Korea and I begged them to let me be the
Pyongyang photographer if it worked and
they did I went there and that meant
that I was the first Western
photographer to ever have regular access
to the country and between then and now
I’ve made about 40 almost 50 trips to
North Korea it was a very difficult
place to work unlike any other you can’t
just move around freely and do whatever
you want a guide goes with you
everywhere and they are sort of half
facilitator half babysitter
they didn’t censor what I did they
didn’t put their hand in front of my
lens but they did have a very different
idea of how I should be portraying their
country and in fact they had a very
different idea of what photojournalism
is completely the word propagandist is
not a dirty word in North Korea it’s
what they do at their news agency but I
went there I think with an open mind and
a free mind and a point of view this is
their version of NASA on the week that
the North Koreans were going to
test-fire a missile the whole world was
condemning them and saying that it was a
test of a nuclear capable rocket the
North Koreans are saying no this is a
rocket we’re going to put into space to
put a weather satellite so they took us
there so that I could photograph it this
is the best example what my job was
while I was in North Korea I was
interpreting reality trying to decide
what was real and what was not real and
I did that through photography the
content of the photography but also the
composition the humor the whimsy I
wasn’t the senior most American diplomat
in North Korea it was this guy here he
is smoking cigar in the gym helping pick
the national basketball team Dennis
Rodman I covered the spectacles in the
propaganda this was a mass synchronized
swimming event for the birthday of the
leader they were swimming or dancing to
a song called we will defend Kim jong-un
with our very lives and this is the
National Football State
and they hold this thing that they call
mass games it’s like a wonder of the
world a hundred thousand people in the
stands holding these books with colored
pages and they flip them and they create
these mass mosaics they look like little
pixels but you for the long enough lens
you can see that they’re actually human
pixels a little faces peeking over the
tops of the books eggs with legs and
sometimes you just have to photograph
whatever’s right in front of you I don’t
really have to try so hard that’s kind
of the way I worked everywhere I went
you know if they took me to a patriotic
flag factory or a school for Performing
Arts I just pretty much photographed
what was in front of me I thought it was
revealing to show how the Koreans wanted
to present themselves in their country
and over time I got further and further
away from the spectacles and away from
the Capitol and out into places that
really no other foreigners had ever been
and certainly very few photographers had
ever seen and maybe was even more
important to me is that I found my way
into people’s homes and into people’s
offices like this woman was a secretary
at the Korean Central News Agency with
her little aquarium full of fish and I
could look into people’s eyes and feel
like I actually could make a connection
to Koreans I traveled within Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright as she met
with then leader Kim jong-il we stood in
this Wizard of Oz looking Palace and
we’re all alone waiting for him to come
in the room and she’s looked at me and
said what should I do
where should I stand I said I don’t have
no idea we stood on these big flowers
and then the door open and he walked in
and it was like I’d only seen this kind
of fantasy on in a movie before and it
was like he just stepped out of the
screen into this room it was the first
time that I understood how I connected
to the that country and how surreal and
how I connected as a photographer but
also it was the first time I realized
how important the work that I could do
there if I could only invest my time and
commit to the place it wasn’t easy at
the beginning everyone watches you there
and on my first trip with Madeleine
Albright when it came out of the airport
they drew the drapes on the bus
put black plastic over the windows of my
hotel I couldn’t see out I felt like
there was nothing real out there was all
just a facade but over the years through
photography I could peek around out to
the other side of those curtains and I
came to understand that there was real
life in North Korea and through my
pictures I tried to take everybody else
on that same journey there was no better
place than North Korea to test the power
of photography photography carries
meaning and mood in ways that writing or
any other medium can’t so when this pale
pink curtain comes down just covers the
eyes of the people in Pyongyang I can
say something that I couldn’t say in
words and photography has multiple
meanings and interpretations this is
kind of how I survived there the line
that I walked this was a vocational
school for children to teach them how to
be farmers the Koreans took me there and
they were very proud to show me this
very high-tech tractor simulator of
course for people outside they see it
differently we see their care and their
love for their children but to us this
is a practice tractor with this sort of
dose level computer terminal on top we
had a lot of very tough arguments about
why did you take that photograph we saw
that picture that doesn’t make us look
good but I could always fall back on
photography I could hold it up and say
this is what I saw I was there this is
what we saw I use many different camera
formats not just to be arty but because
of the cat-and-mouse game I had to play
when I worked this is an old-fashioned
camera that don’t make anymore a
Hasselblad X pan a film camera I wore it
around my neck I had a cable release so
I could just talk and smile take
pictures and I had a little carpenter’s
level in the flash mount so I can make
sure that my horizons are always
straight and when I picked up my big
fancy National Geographic camera
sometimes people were a bit intimidated
and the guide certainly watched me a
little bit more closely but when I use
this one they would say oh that’s just
David’s old-timey camera and I did the
same with my mobile phone I took my
mobile phone and
North Korea everybody by now is a mobile
phone photographer we all are even the
North Koreans take pictures with their
phones believe it or not and I was able
to do things that I couldn’t do with my
big cameras it was normal for them to
see me with a mobile phone taking
pictures and I would also stop and
photograph things that I wouldn’t
normally notice if I was working as a
photojournalist things that you rush
past on your way to telling the news
things that are a little simple still
lives that make up the life around you
and they’re pieces of the puzzle and
explaining a country like North Korea
they didn’t allow mobile phones into the
country until 2013 he used to be I would
arrive at the country and they would
take it away and lock it up in a box
2013 they suddenly said Oh foreigners
can bring their phones into the country
not only that but they opened a 3G
network Koryo link and you could do
everything that we do anywhere with our
phones right in the streets of North
Korea suddenly I was sending pictures to
the world tens of thousands of people
following me right from a village or on
the street in that way sort of
everything became worthy of photography
worthy of my attention I think a piece
in the puzzle I started buying things
collecting things and photographing them
and putting them out on my Instagram
account I started an artefact series
North Korean artifact 101-102
this was the first one the great teacher
of journalists a book I bought in the
bookshop North Korean artifact 102
mountain mushroom moonshine hangover
chaser tea I think this one was made for
export money that was no longer in
circulation a debit card from the bank
sheet music for piano a cookbook from
North Korea here’s a good one the
intercontinental ballistic missile test
firing commemorative greeting card and
these were a hedgehog quill toothpicks I
photographed them all and they became
this sort of popular or like museum
series on my Instagram account so every
day I would go out to some new and
strange place this was a flower festival
for their national flowers the Kim Jong
Aliyah and the Kindle Suniya and I would
go back to my hotel and I would
my pictures back to the newspapers and
magazines and I would post these on
Instagram and I had nothing else to do
the only thing that I could do was watch
state sponsored propaganda on TV so I
would sit and read the comments on
Instagram and people would ask me
questions and I would answer them and
they would have all these stereotypes
and I would get into arguments and it
was my form of entertainment while I was
there they called him followers on
Instagram but it felt like that feel
like they followed me out into the field
that they were with me when I was there
they became interested in North Korea
that became invested in me and what I
was doing and it was a very different
experience that I’d ever had as a
photojournalist
so just publishing at people it was a
more dynamic conversation and it wasn’t
just Instagram I was doing all social
media with my phone in North Korea
Instagram I was tweeting I started using
Foursquare i rated did restaurant
reviews in Pyongyang and I opened up
Google Maps one day and I saw that it
was practically empty
and so through Foursquare I started
plotting red flags naming streets and
naming intersections and buildings where
else in the world can you feel like in
the 21st century feel like a National
Geographic Explorer from the 19th
century besides North Korea with a
mobile phone all I really wanted to do
when I was there was open a window onto
a country that people knew nothing about
to get past all the geopolitics and all
the saber-rattling between countries and
to show that some young army conscript
like that was a real person and to show
that there was something worth
understanding and worth discovering
there I had never photographed birds
before I’m not a I wasn’t a bird watcher
and my friends who are all conflict
photographers said you’re taking
pictures of birds like going on
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