Seungmin
Kim
Digital
Photography
Eye contact
To me China
town is not an unfamiliar place. Although it is not entirely identical, it is closed to the culture that I have grown up with. Just
by having a similar face, I am welcomed and invited into their culture. The
life style within china town is not much different from other sides of New York
City. It is composed of different materials that are slightly more exotic, but
people’s lives are same. They work, they live and they react to camera as New
Yorkers do.
As a person with Asian outlook, I
could easily approach people in Chinatown compared to other photographers. My
presence in their space does not bother them to raise their head and care about
me. However, the situation changes when I bring my camera out and set my self
in a position to take a picture. They freeze as if they saw something
forbidden. They stand still as soon as they notice my camera pointing toward
them and stare into my lens. It is interesting that presence of camera changes
my position from one of them to a stranger crossing their boundary. By
capturing the moment when people stares through my lens, I tried to question
the boundary of people’s comfort zone.
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