Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Carolyn King submits Kyung Woo Chun



It's always really nice to see a photographer who throws something new into the mix of the traditional, but I only wish I had found this guy before we started our self-portrait assignment. Kyung Woo Chun uses extremely slow shutter speeds to capture his subjects in portrait. The effect gives way to something that all humans have in common, something that is not often portrayed in portraiture and that is the transient quality of life and the inevitable end of each of our existences. This is a theme that I am very much interested in and it was quite enjoyable to witness it employed in someone else's work. Each photo illustrates a subject who has a ghostly appearance as if they are just out of the reach of those of us existing in this world. The subjects seem to exist just beyond a veil, as if they are nothing but a vague memory. There is often just a hint of color, a streak of red, a blur of green, which aid to the feeling of hollowness that I sense in Chun's work.

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