Disclaimer: “this may contain traces of nuts, or of nut related products”.

But seriously, what I’m about to write is a personal impression, and like a lot of the things I’ll say on this site, it’s not intended as a concrete thesis on the given subject.

The way I see this site, is that it is a kind of extended and public notepad, which can be used later to formulate more concrete ideas. The wonder of open and public publishing is that anyone can view the notes, and knock the corners off certain things that I say. This, at the end of the day, potentially forms a mode of criticism.

So, getting to the point, finally, I hear you say, I wanted to lay open, to a degree, some of my impressions of living in Korea, and the way that this particular experience might express itself through the images I publish here, and other things.

Here’s some background, to put things in context. When I left Australia five years ago, the place where I had been trained in photography, I was strangely “over photography”. The situation was much the same in Ireland, the next place on the itinerary, and the birthplace of me and my interest in the medium. At that time, I was more interested in film as a medium; however I wasn’t in a position to make films. It wasn’t until I returned half way back to Australia, to Korea about three years ago, that my interest in photography was rekindled.

Some experiments began here, as a kind of dabbling. I was interested in “collecting” small details that interested me, with no clear intent. But photography ultimately has become a kind of medium through which I can experience Korea, and learn about the place, and my relation to it. It presses me to look a little deeper than the surface of things.

Now that I’ve begun writing about this, I realise that I could probably ramble on and on, almost endlessly. So, at this point, I should limit myself to talking about a single aspect of my experience, that of distance. It seems, on reflection, that one defining characteristic is common among almost all my images in Korea: that of a distance between me and the subjects.

“Naturally”, I hear you say: this is inherent in the medium. The subject, objectively, is always going to be an entity, which is removed, distant, from the camera; the image making device. However, I believe that this distance can be surmounted, to a degree. This is up to the individual image maker and their subject to determine, at the time, and between themselves.

For me, as the image maker, the distance between me and my subjects is more like a chasm than anything else. And this is an expression of the situation I find myself in, in my life in Korea. Whatever I photograph, whoever I photograph, is an entity which I struggle to understand, and must fight to relate with.

Conversely, my hope is to be respectful and to honour my subjects; yet at the same time, my conception of Korea and the people here, is that I can never actually wholly relate to, nor fully understand this culture and society, which I find myself in. This may seem to you like a blundering contradiction, or a very harsh statement; however, only perhaps when you’ve lived here could you understand this for what it is.

Practically, how can I demonstrate this rift to you? It seems that friendship in Korean culture is almost exclusively founded at school, with one’s contemporaries. Briefly, Korean language and culture is one that inherently honours seniority, and this honour also creates a divide between Koreans themselves. So, for example, if I was Korean, and 30 years old, I could not “hang” with a 32 year old person. I would need to use a different dialect when speaking to them, and there would be matters of conversation that we simply could not discuss. The situation obviously creates difficulties in founding friendships, and Koreans have a different concept of friendship.

These cultural normalities are what I grasp at to rationalise, that while Korean people have generally been very kind to me, there is an understood difference between me and any given Korean person, one which cannot be overcome; in which friendship and familiarity cannot be assumed. I am a foreigner. And there as an absoluteness in this state of being, in Korea. It defines every experience, and I am reminded of my being “out of place” on a daily basis. This difference could be metaphorical of the difference between any one person in a differing sub-cultural group, in any place or time. And it’s this fact that makes it interesting for me.

Far from being a limitation, the situation has some advantages. Particularly in terms of the images; for while there is a chasm between me and my subjects, there are also unique elements worthy of exploration; despite difference, and all the rest. I’ll have to leave the efficacy of this up to you, as a judge, however.

Of course, there are bound to be exceptions to what I’ve raised here, there are no hard and fast rules, and I cannot be so arrogant to claim that my experience has been that of others. What I have described is the general state of things, and there are surely other aspects to the situation, all of which I am not aware of.

Possibly (and hopefully), what I have discussed here might help to contextualise my images, and describe some of the obstacles which one is inevitably faced with when attempting to understand and photograph a different culture from one’s own.

In the meantime, I’ll leave this open, and in the hope that you, the reader, might help me knock some of the rough edges off my argument.