"Earth First" sees hope in this picture.
Posted on 12/23/2012 3:54:51 AM PST by nuconvert
Snapshots from a secret state: Panoramic pictures of North Koreans at work and play give an extraordinary glimpse of everyday life
Award-winning photographer David Guttenfelder makes frequent trips to notoriously secretive North Korea trying to capture the country as accurately as possible for outsiders. Here he describes capturing this set of photos which offer a rare glimpse into the everyday life of its citizens... My window on North Korea is sometimes, quite literally, a window - of a hotel room, the backseat of a car, a train.
Fleeting moments of daily life present themselves suddenly, and they are opportunities to show a side of the country that is entirely at odds with the official portrait of marching troops and tightly coordinated pomp that the Pyongyang leadership presents to the world. In April, I was part of a group of international journalists that traveled by train to the launch site for this year's first, failed rocket test.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
A worker’s paradise...
Fear lives in thier eyes
Only vehicle I saw, other than military was powered by a wood-gas generator.
Truly a paradise!
A preview of America in a few years.
It’s not a Communist hellhole. It’s carbon neutral!
The North Koreans should be thankful that their border with the South is so saturated with landmines,machine guns,soldiers,etc.Otherwise,those poor slobs in the South would overrun the country,thus spoiling the paradise that The Great Leader,The Dear Leader and The Pimpled Fat Leader have built.
My thoughts exactly. The only modern mechanization was
military and an empty apple processing plant. I’ll bet
there is not one car in Korea that can do a 10 second
1/4 mile. Not one sign of prosperity.
“OMG!!! They force their children to play the ACCORDIAN!!”
No that’s a good thing. Right now there is only one
accordion player and he gets all the gigs.
"Earth First" sees hope in this picture.
This is the future of America under the Communist in Chief.
I’ve already dropped my conservative credentials and have accepted “the one” as my dear leader. In addition to that I have joined the Democrat party and have accepted some leadership positions. The one I really want the most is to be nominated as my “block captain.”
That would give me power over the people living on my block and additional food to eat. The “power trip” would be wonderful.
We have already plowed up our front and back yard and as soon as spring comes we will be planting our community food plot there. As block captain I will be able to make all good communists that live on my block (and under my power) to have their food plots ready by then.
I am so happy to see America “move forward” and to see the “progressive” way forced upon those mean and hateful CAPITALISTS.
Now, under “Dear Leader” (his holiness...Obama) we will all finally be equal (even though some animals are more equal than others) and enjoy a communal life that benefits everyone.
I am closing my business because the income I need to earn to live a decent life can now be had by those who actually work and from their efforts, I can live an easy life as the local block captain.
“From each according to their ability to each according to their need.” What a wonderful life.
I can’t wait until 2016 when we can get rid of that piece of toilet paper Obama calls the Constitution and then “Dear Leader” will place himself in absolute power and we will live happily ever after..........that is.........if I get selected as my local block captain. If that does not happen I guess I will be in deep do-do.
/Sarc
Not one smile in the whole country. I feel sorry for the NORKs. I believe that one day when they are free there is a large part of them that will hold a grudge against us for not freeing them sooner.
Didn't see even one person that was even a little bit overweight...
Mayor Doomberg would feel right at home in NK
Actually, the boy playing on the beach stood out - he looked like he hadn’t missed a meal in a while.
What a cold, unhappy, colorless existence where the government is their religion and worshipped with parades and pictures of the leaders. All that human ingenuity, spirit and joy stifled.
I did not see one indication that there were poor there. They show only the upper class.
The people at the swimming pool are either very physical fit or reaching into overweight, with one gal that would be considered obese here.
These seem to be staged. People uncomfortably huddling around a diving board, empty rooms with one or two people in them. The land is desolate, there weren’t any “lush” pictures. And the empty bottling plant...
My dad fled Poland after WWII, and that was his favorite expression. I got to see Poland just after the Berlin Wall came down, and it looked much like this. It's hard to imagine the overwhelming, gray bleakness, and how everything was broken down and held together by duck tape.
Over time, there have been more and more opportunities to leave the showplace capital, Pyongyang, and mingle with the people.
But they are usually wary of foreigners and aware that they too are being watched.
In my photography, I try to maintain a personal point of view, a critical eye, and shoot with a style that I think of as sometimes-whimsical and sometimes-melancholy.
My aim is to open a window for the world on a place that is widely misunderstood and that would otherwise rarely be seen by outsiders.
I think he is an exceptional photographer but that last sentence at least to me shows that he has at least been somewhat seduced by communism.
I read the entire article and he is pretty careful not to be at all critical of the regime. He obviously can not be openly critical if he ever wants to go back but he does not really make any mention of the poverty, starvation or oppressive conditions that the common people endure.
Perhaps because he is always shadowed (controlled) by his minder he does not see how the common people are living. It is that ‘misunderstood comment that bothers me.
There is also this:
I hope these images help people to develop their own understanding of the country, one that goes beyond the point-counterpoint presented by Pyongyang and Washington. And maybe they can help create some sort of bridge between the people of North Korea and the rest of the world.
This reporter some how thinks that if Washington would just understand what a wonderful country Korea is things will be alright.
Maybe he is just trying to make friends in the North Korean government or maybe he is a communist at heart.
What an idyllic place to live. I am sure if we would only follow all of Obama’s precepts and implement every last one of his policy initiatives, Americans could be as lucky, create an equally perfect society and live wonderful lives.
Yep, that’s the way to go comrade.
I got a post from MaxMax but I guess he missed the “/sarc” at the end of my post and actually believed that I was serious. Oh well, some people don’t read to the end.
All joking aside, we are in really deep “do-—do” this time around and as ignorant as the last 2 generations have become, we are doomed to communism.
This photographer went only where the government wanted him to go. These pictures are essentially propaganda. Even so, they are interesting.
I am pretty sure the average NK citizen would not want his picture taken.
He is only showing what they allow him to. No concentration camps, staved peasants..
Sadly you’re right. Our country is eroding in front of us.And if Obama isn’t stopped or impeached then we have betrayed the men who risked every thing they had to make a new Eden of freedom on the North America continent . They left us every thing legal they could to remedy such a situation and if that were ever to fail they left us something else too, pray God we never have to use it.
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