The Darkroom

1/500 sec; f/10; ISO 800

Good bye, Mr. Horse!

The year of the horse has passed and the year of the sheep has arrived.

At the end of every year, photo journalists are busy coming up with a front page photo for the New Year’s Day publication.

New Year’s photos are usually planned ahead to impart special meaning about the upcoming year. It probably goes hand in hand with the belief held by members of the newsroom that if the front page photo comes out well, that year will go smoothly for the newspaper as well.

In Korea, one of most common themes for the New Year’s edition is the representative animal of that year from the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac.

Having published a photo of a sheep in our regular newspaper for the New Year’s edition, I also wanted to share the photo with our magazine readers for the first edition of W this year.

Wishing the best of the year to everyone!

Daegwallyeong, Gangwon Province. Photo by Shim Hyun-chul (shim@koreatimes.co.kr)