By Nicholas Bonner
PYONGYANG EXPOSED- the first and rarest photographic book on North Korea
PART 2 The Project
Charlie Crane and I began the project to photograph Pyongyang in 2004 and it would take two further trips to complete the project. The recce trip was to introduce Charlie to North Korea and the rules and regulations and for him to gain the trust of the two guides who would accompany us at all times and it was through them that we would hoped we could approach not only the official tour guides at the various tourism sites but also members of the public who happened to be around at any given time.
Charlie Crane and I began the project to photograph Pyongyang in 2004 and it would take two further trips to complete the project. The recce trip was to introduce Charlie to North Korea and the rules and regulations and for him to gain the trust of the two guides who would accompany us at all times and it was through them that we would hoped we could approach not only the official tour guides at the various tourism sites but also members of the public who happened to be around at any given time.
Before this I had several meetings with the travel company officials to introduce the project and try and garner their support. Anything out of the ordinary, new or off the schedule is a big ask of them, whether it be bringing over the first football team or shooting the first film, creating something that by being ‘new’ will draw unwanted attention is not the route most Koreans would chose, stick to the tried and tested is a more sensible course of action. Of all of these projects photography is perhaps the most sensitive.
A photograph for a publication or display in North Korea is seen not as a fleeting image but a carefully scripted document reflecting a socialist realism version of reality. A North Korean photograph aims to be a reflection of a beautiful, harmonious, and developed country. Photographers simply avoid elements that might reflect backwardness (for example the massive 105 story Ryugyong hotel was absent from most shots of the city before it was fully clad) and images with flaws were touched up in the dark room. With the advent of photoshop all sorts of possibilities from montage to colour grading presented themselves for advancing the utopian photograph (and as a by product creating some wonderful kitsch!)
Before publishing the North Korean photographer will have their work reviewed at all stages from the subject matter to the composition, content and caption. This added the pressure on what Charlie and I planned to do: we were asking for the Koreans to relinquish control and simply to trust us. This was not for some ‘happy clappy’ tourists snaps, Charlie was using a large format camera with the most detailed negative. The negatives would be developed outside of the country and we would be responsible for how the image would be used. If something should go wrong during the shoot or when the works were published (including associated text) it could cause offence and place our Korean colleagues in a very precarious situation with their authorities.
I had feared that even with permissions we would meet resistance, that we would not be allowed to take photographs freely and would be limited to reverent shots of the city’s monumentalist architecture. But the opposite was true; our local guides (still an essential accoutrement in DPRK) were helpful and courteous, we did not come up against any officious bureaucrats in our path, and our images underwent no censorship. Perhaps best of all, the people we encountered were interested in our project, and not suspicious or surly.
The guides who accompanied Charlie and I were wonderful people we photographed in this book were average Pyongyang citizens, ranging from guides in uniform to girls working at the petrol station. They are people who actually live in those concrete high-rise buildings and take their children to gym class, and rush home in the evening to cook supper. Of course, Pyongyang itself is hardly a normal city; the entire place was razed to the ground during the Korean War (the ‘Victorious Fatherland Liberation War’ as it is known locally, which lasted from 1950-53) and subsequently rebuilt, so few of its historical buildings remain. You also need a coveted resident’s permit to live here, and the schools and hospitals and other amenities are better than in other places in the DPRK. But, like people all over the world, the citizens of Pyongyang still have to commute to work on the crowded subway, and they may find time for the odd soccer game with the kids on a nice summer evening.
Charlie got some of his best shots from the times we were just driving round the city and spotted something interesting going on. At first our guide Mr Kim, a charming and gentle man, thought we were a little crazy, but he saw that we got just as interesting results snapping people going about their daily business as we did when they were all dressed up, stiff and formal, at the national monuments and tourist sites.
Charlie adopted a photographic neutrality, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions as to what to read into the photographs themselves. As the camera was being set up I would interview the protagonists, and these verbatim texts were incorporated into the book under the image.
On occasions it is a simple matter of cultural misunderstandings that limit what you can do in North Korea; During the making of our first documentary in 2001 (The Game of Their Lives) we were filming on a local tram, our cameraman taking close-ups of the older people riding the vehicle with us. The guides at the time were concerned that we were taking images of the elderly to portray a bad image of Korea- “Why only film old people?”, they asked – we were stuck for an answer, but our soundman asked the Koreans “Are you not proud of the generation who fought in the Korean War?” From then on we were pointed out possible old person candidates to film at every opportunity! In the end Charlie and I accepted, even embraced, the limitations placed upon photography.
Charlie and I felt that by directly addressing the North Koreans’ self- perception, rather than by any hidden-camera voyeuristic exposé, outsiders could better understand North Koreans’ image of themselves. However, I don’t think we completely fulfilled this aim. The result was that in many cases the frailty of the individual was reduced to a stoic, proud face (the large format camera requires the protagonist to stand stock still for a minute), and this is then overshadowed by the monumental architecture of Pyongyang. Even so it is an astonishing book.
