A born photographer
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By Kim Ji-myung
He can no longer talk. He can eat and walk only with the help of his wife; only she can communicate with him through his sounds and gestures.
For the past several years, he has slowly lost the speaking ability and kinetic functions. And yet his gaze was sharp and penetrating as ever when I recently visited him for the first time in several years.
I am talking about H. Edward Kim ― probably the most successful and accomplished Korean photographer in our time.
He is known by two descriptions: First an Asian photographer who made his way up to the position of Chief Photo Editor of National Geographic magazine, and the first western photo-journalist who was allowed to travel in North Korea in the 70s.
He toured the secluded country for 28 days. The resulting series of news stories together with impressive and vivid photos published in National Geographic were shocking revelation to world readers.
He was a sophisticated writer on top of being a magical photo-artist. His photos had an impact that lasted in people’s minds for the rest of their lives.
He was born as Kim Hee-jung in 1940 to a middle–class family in Seoul. He went to an elite junior school for boys. One summer vacation, his father gave him an old twin-lens German reflex camera, of the Rolleicord brand.
And this changed his life. His father was a typical Korean father who was strict about rules but strategic in planning his children’s future. He was not a man of extrovert activities, sparing words within the family, but he had an exceptional curiosity about other civilizations.
The camera was a kind of mission for the young Kim, as assigned by his father during vacation. During the hot summer days, he played around with his “magic box.”
His family, friends, neighboring areas and nearby villages became good objects to shoot, and every moment was an eye-opening experience for him.
“One day, while I was roaming around, I saw a young mother breastfeeding. At that moment, I felt compelled to capture the scene close-up,” says Kim in his memoir “Homeward Bound.”
His concept of photography changed from that day. Maybe his father was watching if young Kim could be awakened to this essential enlightenment.
“When he asked me at the end of my vacation what I had discovered, I told him that I had seen things which I had never seen before,” Kim says.
Was he simply lucky or was he a genius? From the very beginning, his black and white photos were not ordinary; they transmitted powerful messages.
Edward Kim held his first photography show in 1957 when he was a sophomore in high school. It was an astonishing happening in Korea at that time.
When photo-taking itself was not common, a high school student’s solo exhibition in Seoul made for a big story. His second show followed a year later.
He went to Yonsei University in Seoul, but very soon he transferred to America for studies. He studied journalism and later joined the staff of National Geographic.
But in fact, his life was not as smooth as this brief resume suggests. He experienced frustration and extreme depression.
His days during that period, mixing with beatniks in New York, are described in detail in his memoir. At last, he failed in a suicide attempt.
After that, he managed to turn his path back upwards, and pushed harder for success. His insightful photos and highly sensitive writings brought him many prestigious awards including the 1974 Overseas Press Club Award for Best Reporting, the 1971 Picture Editor of the Year Award (POY), and the 1979 White House Press Corps Award.
In the mid-1980s, then-president Park Chung-hee and his staff were not satisfied with photos taken by local cameramen.
The answer was bringing Kim back home. Edward Kim accepted late President Park’s invitation, and then his work was fully supported by the government with all available resources, to the envy of other photographers.
In 2008, Edward Kim had his third photo show in Seoul, since the two previous exhibitions that he held as a high school boy in the 1950s.
This retrospective show presented scenes frozen from the 1950s and 1980s Korea, all now bygone. We will never be able to go back to those days, or to restore or reproduce such scenes.
By the way, he also has a remarkable intuition and skill in selecting the most suitable music for specific visual images. His photos and video works are immortal records for all Koreans.
The loss of an extraordinary talent, whether by death or by sickness, always saddens me. I think valuable cultural heritages need to be conserved and handed down in any nation.
My recent visit to Edward Kim’s family was to suggest a way to preserve and display his photographic works eternally.
A humanities professor and IT expert has recently developed software with which we can set up a grand museum-gallery in cyberspace.
An unlimited number of artists may occupy individual rooms and upload their works of art there for permanent display, for an insignificant cost to them.
If the Park Geun-hye government aims at enhancing happiness of people through revived culture, I think it is a nice idea for the government to set up a national cyber museum. It will be a fundamental but epoch-making service not only for Korean artists but for all art-lovers of the world.
The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.