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This blog has tended to be hard on photojournalism, in part because it is difficult to get North Korea right. Misguided efforts have ranged from an uncritical mirroring of socialist monumentalism to the “they are just like us” photos (posts categorized as Glimpses are collected here, including both photojournalism and documentaries).
Elliott Davies adds real value with a straightforward approach to some of the out-of-the-way scenes he managed to document (make sure to click on each 100-photo gallery at the bottom if the page). There are the usual shots of monuments, guides, food (including a petrol clam bake and a lavishly kitschy birthday cake) and some interesting examples of socialist-realist murals and art.
But among the many shots with affecting juxtapositions are a ride at an amusement park in Pyongyang with a group of soldiers strapped in and one of those eerie photos of the Grand People’s Study House—in this case a music appreciation room with boom boxes on each desk, but no people.
Others provide real information on the country. Several shots show trucks packed to the gills with passengers, in one case school children. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the inadequate supply of basic transportation infrastructure, not surprising if you really don’t want people to move around. The limits on the construction industry are shown in an incredible picture of a jerry-rigged elevator at a construction site that yields a comment by Davies about the likely number of work-related deaths. Another shot of a bridge calls into serious doubt its structural integrity and a shot of a city somewhere shows a phalanx of what appear to be abandoned or unfinished apartment buildings. And the politics of tourism is shown both in shots of the gleaming Masik Pass resort and Pyongyang’s golf course and a telling shot of an effectively abandoned structure in the Mt. Kumgang complex.
Propaganda comes up repeatedly both in the murals and paintings, but also in the enormous investment in showcase sites that appear largely unused by the public, either local or foreign. In another interesting shot, Davies captures an anti-American skit at the Pyongyang circus; no rest for the weary.
And amidst all of the city- and country- and monument-scapes, Davies manages to get a good number of people just living their lives. An interesting way to while a way a half an hour.
