North Korea - October 2008

These are some of the 1000 photographs I took in North Korea in October 2008. The restrictions on photography were the most strict I had encountered but tended to be along the lines of not embarassing the Korean people - meaning do not show how poor we are. Ok but you do get tired of taking photos of monuments. I love art and we saw all the socialist art you could stand. I wanted photos of people. In the states we tend to dehumanize North Korea and to see a child, a worker, a grandmother strips the distance between our societies. I did the same thing in the USSR during the Reagan years. The North Koreans are a wonderful people. As one person observed in our group, "we could learn something from them."
I am returning to the DPRK in September of 2009 and will rename this one North Korea 2008.