MYUNG SOOK YOON - 제목: 윤명숙의 바다(The Sea)

It's difficult to find much information on Myung Sook Yoon and the diminutive displays of her work online do little justice to her creations. Also, I've found that many South Korean photographers are poorly represented in the west which is a shame. We'll have to see what we can do about that.

"The sea accompanied by typhoon or hard rain is dreadful but makes my heart flutter with a new hope.

Sometimes a strong wind shaking my windows makes me sit up all night but with a happy expectation that a new day will come with clear and beautiful scenes newly born after the rain.

Whenever I take pictures, there is not myself, there is only a person who feels cold and hungry.

After the stay in big Jeju Island where I have no acquaintances for about two weeks, I can hear a sound from deep in my heart.

It is my voice of yearning to talk to someone. Yell!

Keep going to and out of the coast in the rain for several consecutive days, I just wait for the rain to stop.

And finally I see the sun coming out, I just feel like running away when I stand in the piercing wind at the rainy coast of Jeju Island in mid winter.

But those that are not frequently seen I want to take.

Time does not exist when I think in which angle I should see the sea, where between the sky and the sea I should put the horizon, etc.

In Seoul, electric cables in the street sometimes remind me of the horizon.

The sea shows a desperate, dark appearance but a hope suddenly comes out of it.

I felt desperate about the fact that I am a woman before.

I also felt bad about myself that I am small, silent and not social.

As time went by, I understood those things have made myself.

Now I found myself enjoying taking landscapes into the photos alone.

The sea is always there, showing its appearances as it is and I see the appearances of the sea the way I want to see it.

This is my relation with the sea.

I become the richest of all in the world when I take the photo of the sea that I wanted after a long waiting.

I am just happy that I have stood before the sea."

-Myung Sook Yoon
Summer 2003
'Listening to the rain'

Links:
Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography