A rare photographic insight into the everyday lives of the people of North Korea

Date
9 June 2016

David Guttenfelder’s photographic series North Korea Now and #NKorea offer a rare lens into the lives of the everyman and everywoman of North Korea, at home, at work and at play.

Inventive framing sets David’s work apart, artfully depicting sights incongruous with the preconceptions of North Korea to the Western audience — so often encumbered by a morbid fascination for its Juche policy of economic, cultural and diplomatic self-reliance, and its notorious leader.

Shots of the military and propaganda are unavoidable, as they would surely also be in David’s homeland the United States, yet he treats the subject with impartiality placing shots among more recognisably civilian and more universal phenomena like weddings, bathhouses, swimming, farming and school recitals.

His is an intimate view, one less concerned with geopolitics and foreign relations, than it is with the everyday lives of the people of North Korea. As Guttenfelder has remarked, North Korea is “not a cardboard movie facade, it’s a real place—people have lives, they get up and go to work.” Rather, his work documents the fashions, material culture, technology and architecture, all photographed with a lived in quality.

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David Guttenfelder: North Korea Now

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David Guttenfelder: #NKorea

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David Guttenfelder: North Korea Now

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David Guttenfelder: #NKorea

Above

David Guttenfelder: North Korea Now

Above

David Guttenfelder: #NKorea

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About the Author

Jamie Green

Jamie joined It’s Nice That back in May 2016 as an editorial assistant. And, after a seven-year sojourn away planning advertising campaigns for the likes of The LEGO Group and Converse, he came back to look after New Business & Partnerships here at It’s Nice That. Get in touch with him to discuss new business opportunities, and how we can work together on creative partnerships, insights, experiences or advertising.

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