Stop Faking the Funk — Aint Nobody Gritty in Seoul City
To all the western “street photographers” across the peninsula dabbling with your DSLRs and mirrorlesses but you haven’t learned the history — not only are you not the first in this game, but it’s also arrogant to talk about how “the Koreans don’t even know the value of their own streets” when you haven’t even bothered to look up the great Korean street photographers who came waaaaay before you, actually. While you Lightroom-addicted fools think laying a B&W/high-pass filter over your desaturated shots of wrinkly old ladies looking off into the distance makes the shots poignant. Garry Winogrand didn’t have Lightroom.
Just use color and stop hiding your mistakes in post. Simulated B&W is used too much — and obviously so — to hide bad flash work, to add false poignancy, to cover bad exposure mistakes, etc. Wanna impress me? Catch something I haven’t seen before. No more pictures of old ladies at food stalls, young couples looking at their phones, etc. All you guys — and almost all of you are dudes who fancy themselves a cross between Hunter Thompson and Garry Winogrand — and are out there recording the TRUE GRIT of Seoul but are basically doing the white male photo guy equaivalent of BASIC-ass Instagram pics of pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks — Give us some REAL KOREA, not just your orientalist fantasy. Gimme some heart, Gimme a STYLE.
Gimme some 김기찬, my 니가s.
OR…Gimme some 이형록.
Or some 정범태.
Or Busan-based 최민식.
Several of whom were chin-checked in the Korean film Ode to My Father (국제시장).
In short, intrepid western photographers doing Korean street photography for the “first time,” do yer damn homework, and do it in Korean.
Sheeeeet, I came into this in 2002 and even I was already late. I didn’t invent this and neither did you. Stop the Columbusing.
