Looks like smiling is frowned up in all the photos.
How do you photograph one of the most secretive countries in the world?
For Charlie Crane the answer was simple, photograph what they want you to see. If there is no possibility of getting underneath the surface then the answer was to photograph the surface itself. This series is taken from a larger body of work in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.
Although not commonly thought of as a holiday destination all these photographs have been taken at tourist sites throughout the city.
No smiles? Thats a bit “propagandistics” as there are smiles. Even grins. I think “Not enough smiles” would be more on the mark.
I saw a tv personality try to grill a North Kornean tourist guide on starvation in her country and she was denying anything at all was amiss. I did not think much of that reporter. He was out for a story putting the girls life at risk.
Yes, just like in the USA: cover what is permitted. And thats why half of congress is not in Jail and the other half on trial.
While we are on the subject of North Korea, there is actually a fast food place, probably in Pyongyang as well.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2l9Yu88snu4
Very surreal
A good photographer would have said “ok, now show me your tits” and could have captured a wonderful smile.
What is “surreal” about Koreans trying American style fast food? I like japanese style noodles and would think spaghetti might be an interesting change of pace to try once or twice for a Korean? Who doesn’t like pizza?
From the side panel, I found this more interesting: millions in North Korea still on the edge of starvation while their government paints South Korea as a terrible place what with their 15X higher living standards. Seems illegal possession of cell phones from China is informing the NK populous? Information is a power thing.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bQtsV9OUBcA&feature=related (see how I removed the www. to make the link work?)
You cannot lie in art, it is inherently psychological.
NK is a fascinating study in that truth.
This Charlie Crane has got game.
Superb portraits very well done images his take on North Korea is very compelling.
#4 I think it’s surreal in how the North Korean government are trying to justify “importing” Western culture, which America is a part of, by stating how the country is “leading” the world via introducing genuine international cuisine to the masses. (i.e. elite living in Pyongyang)
Also, I feel that fear from the government over false government propaganda has quelled any rebellion in the repressive north.
What struck me was the almost total absence of any text or signage in most of the shots. The first text I saw was “PUEBLO” painted on the front of the boat. Once some pics from places people actually live, as opposed to the tourist destinations, approximately normal amounts of text and signage started to appear. Compare to any non-Communist tourist trap…
What a great, er, building? Such lovely murals.
A lack of smiles and not much gray hair. Most people in the photographs are fairly young modestly dressed attractive females.
I wonder how their opium crop is doing?
Isn’t it wonderful how a country prospers when the government manages things in the best interest of the people? Central planning is so efficient in theory.
Getting it to work in practice seems to be beyond humans. Of course the progressives are still convinced they can make it work here… Some of the Republican in name only agree.
One interesting thing is that most of the photos have a lone person. Even the train station is practically empty. Weird creepy place.
P.S. The lady with the digger is hinting at a smile.
Not to worry.. i’m sure we have designs on invading NK that will turn those frowns upside down..
I mean.. after all, NK is one of the few places left without a private central bank. -one of the top 3 deciding factors for invasion..
(the other two being oil/mineral wealth and sitting on a repository of ancient artifacts that could expose the true nature of Humanity’s history (or ancient adv. tech/weapon designs) -of course..
-s
All orderly, all ship shape and clean, no crowds, no waiting, all is bliss.
Are potato chips available?
Full service gas station, now that’s surreal.
In #8 Uncle Patso said: What struck me was the almost total absence of any text or signage in most of the shots.
There was plenty of Korean propaganda written on the walls or the monuments. (I loved the plane with pilars all around the cockpit. Don’t have to worry about somebody taking off with that one and flying it to freedom.)
But you’re correct in thinking that they don’t use a lot of signage.
North Koreans aren’t swimming in advertising like Japan or South Korea or, to a lesser extent, urban China.
When you have only one brand of toilet paper, or of anything else, you don’t need to advertise. (They didn’t have a lot of product advertising in Soviet era Moscow either. [I’m pretty sure it would have been the same from Leningrad to Vladivostok.])
That’s because in push economies they don’t have a lot of variety. You only have one manufacturer, making one product, that’s it.
If the central committee didn’t plan for it, you were left with your dick in your hand, whenever and wherever you could find some privacy, cursing the crappy, woody toilet paper when you get done.)
Their maps aren’t exactly brimming with helpful directions either.
Don’t know where you are? Good.
Don’t know where you’re going? Even better.
Their cities aren’t lit up like arcade game targets.
Where ever you look, if its not daytime, you’re taking a shot in the dark, (but I recommend using a muzzle flash suppressor.)
in #12 soundwash said: sure we have designs on invading NK.
Have you seen the terrain of the place? Up one hill and down another. The whole country is like that except for a few coastal villages/communities.
There’s no oil in there. Not even the possibility of oil.
There’s no mineral resources that we couldn’t find elsewhere where they would welcome us with tax abatements and pre-existing infrastructure for hauling the ore out.
North Korea is a tourist vacation spot … for the shogun era.
Plenty of people desperate for food and willing to rent their daughters’ orifices to round eyed gaijin and nihonjin.
Its fuckin’ sad in the north.
Not even China wants it.
They could march south into North Korea, line up the whole Kim family against the wall, and nobody would object.
The whole planet would regard them as saviors and liberators.
But its more trouble than its worth.
You’d end up with a small population, roughly 25 million, of ignorant-ass, violent cretins on your hands.
I can in fact see a justification for keeping the Kims around.
North Korea could be the penal colony of the entire world.
If they’ll keep ’em there, we’ll pay for North Korea’s upkeep.
Sad but this is the last of the Paranoid countries of the world. They are slowly losing their closed eco system of living. The internet has provided that. Eventually the people will rise up.
#18. I seriously doubt that the internet is readily available north of the 38th.
If NK ever somehow loses its present regime (peacefully) and finally joins the rest of us all, perhaps they could preserve parts of that severe scenery they had to endure, as a reminder to the the ol’ hoomin race what can happen when you don’t ‘question authority’.
Might even be a good tourism money-maker.
(Gosh Martha, lookit at them old phones willya!)
North Korean pornography consists of formal images of slightly naked (one breast showing only) women standing at attention in front of industrial machines while peering tentatively at the lens.
It is considered bad form to have any others in the shot.
Sure a lot of North Korea experts on this blog. Anyone ever been there or are we all going by what the press and our governments tell us?
It’s way to pristine and where the hell is everybody?
I met a South Korean girl recently who funded a two week trip to the US in good style, but who was unable to travel more often because IT TOOK TWO YEARS TO GET TWO WEEKS OFF WORK. You could get vacations to other places in Asia on a long weekend EVERY FEW MONTHS.
Different places are different.
#18…. Ummm…no. North Korean’s aren’t allowed on the Internet.
Wow, to look at most those pictures, you would think that it’s a ghost city. I found it rather creepy.
In #19, sargasso_c said: I seriously doubt that the internet is readily available north of the 38th..
Damn straight…
POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) is high-tech for them.
I wouldn’t push the telephone infrastructure past 110 baud.
Those two phones on the desk weren’t for show.
That’s how they put in two lines.
No flashing push buttons for accessing any line from any phone.
No PBXs in office buildings eiher.
They use twisted wire pairs (and the individual wires and wrapped in woven rag.
They don’t have hold, call waiting or call forwarding.
They don’t even have WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service.)
It barely one step up from turning the crank and asking the operator to connect you. (My wife’s mother use to work for Bell Canada in the nineteen-thirties.)
Most of the population doesn’t have electricity, never mind phone service.
And before everybody gets all high and mighty, electrification of rural America started during Roosevelt’s “New Deal.
The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was started on May 11, 1935, only 76 years ago. (Google it or find it on Wikipedia.)
Pyongyang may be electrified but very little else in the country is, and, like the United Stated until the 1940s, most of he population lives out in the countryside.
The Second World War brought but huge demographic shifts to the urban centers from the rural parts of the country. (Canada was not exempt from this either.)
Most of North Korea is still living at a pre-1935 America level of technology. Then again, North Korea is still fighting the Second World War, (and their tools, toys, technology, fashions, attitudes and morals reflect that.)
Whenever somebody says: “Things used to be so much simpler in the past,” just point him to North Korea and offer to buy him a boat ticket. (Its not as extreme as the Amish* in Pennsylvania, but not by much.)
*) Imagine HAVING to live that way…
In #22 jh asked: anybody ever been there?
Not personally, but I have a lot of Korean friends, including children of some people who made it out from the North.
Life’s good, away from there…
What is that, the sets from the next season of Lost?
The South Koreans don’t want to integrate with the North. The population is already noticeably shorter. The plan is to have the North die off in mass famine.