“With My Camera, I Can Go Anywhere”
By Jiali Chen
As a college student who majored in computer science in South Korea, Hyosub Shin did not know much about photography when he worked on a story about a mental hospital.
“At that time I was not really there as a photographer but I was there try to be a friend, to be them, not an outsider,” Shin said.
Shin said his second brother was suffering from depression at that time. “He changed a whole lot of my family life,” he said. “So it’s an important subject to me.”
He went to the hospital, using what he learned about photography in a student club to take the photos. The story turned out to be one of his most important works.
When Shin first arrived in the United States, he studied advertising photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. In the meantime, he applied for graduate school at Ohio University to study photojournalism.
“Even my professor said ‘No, you can’t do it,’” he said. “I got admission because of that story.”
The same story also helped him get a job as staff photographer at Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“That’s my strongest photo story,” he said. “I try to remember how I did it.”
How did he do it? Shin’s answer is passion.
“I have 20 years of experience as a photojournalist. If I lose my passion, I don’t really work hard to get good pictures, I am worse than first-year photographers,” he said.
However, holding on to the passion has become a challenge to him at this stage as a professional photojournalist.
“I’m doing the same thing every year. Every day is different but as a whole, in one year, everything is the same route,” he said. “But I have to keep motivated. I have to keep working hard. I have to shoot things different ways and that’s very hard.”
He also said that working in newspaper has certain limits in storytelling for publication.
“When I was a student, I took pictures on my style and on my way. And I see certain things on my way. I don’t have to deal with other things,” he said.
Shin said it is easier to approach people, learn about their stories and take photos of them when he is not working on the story for publication. He could also focus more on his story whereas with “Newspaper, I have to think about caption. If I go to certain places, I have to get permission (to take photos).”
Besides taking photos of tangible subjects, Shin is inspired by other photographers who use their images to demonstrate abstract ideas.
“One of the photographers Brian Plonka… he took picture of Ten Commandments, so he took ten pictures representing each commandment,” Shin said. “He’s really really talented photographer… The way he shows the Ten Commandments is beautiful.”
Shin said it is important that photographers know about themselves: what they are curious about and what they want to present. And when it comes to choosing a career, they need to know if they really love this profession.
“Computer science, 10 years ago, was kind of a guaranteed major, a guaranteed job,” he said. “Newspaper, nobody was making money (in newspaper).”
His passion for photography was one of the reasons why he changed his career pursuit.
“I am a really shy person. I don’t talk to people a lot,” Shin said. “But with my camera, I can go anywhere. I can talk to anybody.”
