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Kyunghee Lee – New York, I Dreamt
This essay was made last September as part of my new portfolio. Title of the portfolio is ‘Island of the City’. For two years, I have been taking pictures of 6 representative cities of the world (Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Oslo, New York, and Sydney) and this essay ‘New York, I Dreamt’ is a part of this series.
Some of you may know I’ve had a book published called ‘Island’, which is also shown here on Burn.
The ‘Island of the City’ series, as does the book ‘Island’, reflects and gives insight into the relationship between you, me and the city.
Bio:
2008: “Island”; published by Toseisha, Tokyo, Japan; published on Burn.
2009: Invited to “The 8th China Photographic art festival” & “2009 DALI International Photography Exhibition”
Photographs: Kyunghee Lee
Webiste: www.lightstalkers.org/kyunghee-lee
Editor’s Note: Please only one comment per person under this essay.. Further discussions should take place under Dialogue..
Many thanks… david alan harvey
I find this essay really enjoyable and I’d consider it successful as an essay for this context (in contrast to some of my recent comments where I question that). The odd thing is there are not many pictures that I find really compelling for themselves. I think the images need each other to gain their strength. Maybe I would change my mind about that if i spent more time with them. The concept is strong and works. It really does have a dream-like atmosphere. Your pictures have lots of atmosphere. I love the layering that you have given them. But as people say above, there is a depth lacking but I am not particularly bothered by that here. Its as though maybe these commenters are looking for information about New York and disappointed because there’s not much there but surface, but dreams are like that. Its difficult to grasp things in dreams too. Everything slips out of focus when you try. For me this is much more of a conceptual work than documentary. But in a way I know what they are saying. Although I haven’t been to New York, i don’t see any things that are particularly surprising. On some level, i have seen all the parts of these images before. I like the way you’ve taken these pictures. It’s a style or technique that I would enjoy seeing more of and I think it could transpose to quite a number of subjects without looking forced.
‘New York, I Dreamt’ feels suffocating, a nightmare more than a dream in each moment – whether by direct experience or, imagined. So the sequence fits the title but, I too feel I’ve seen each photograph before albeit not so close. The compositions lack all of the magic and poetry I saw in Love Hotel. All of this CAN be explained by your personal response to NYC but, I’m wondering about an intro that refers so little to the essay and so much to other work? It raises questions. Perhaps you are marketing yourself or feel this essay does not match up to that other work? But then the intro. sounds nothing like the beautiful voice you shared in your messages on the dah website – more like an automated response, as if ‘you’ are not there. I have only read the one message above this so perhaps there are answers to this above. Sending you a hug. Jenny : )
Many of those who weren’t impressed by this slideshow know or live in New York. I’ve never been to New York, I have no idea what it’s really like. I really enjoyed it overall – but personally I do feel like the tilt thing and the blur thing is a bit overdone. There are a few images in there which I love, rich and personal they drew me in. Reminiscent of Alex Webb. But they seemed lost in the jungle of tilted and blurred images, like their specialness was diluted by the mediocre ones. I think if you ditched half of these you’d have a winner. (It’s not that half of them are no good – it’s just the repetition)