A South Korean photographer who like so many others emigrated to the US in 1977, he was nine years old. He has cited Robert Frank as one of his main influences and parallels can be seen in each photographer's life.
Baak had a traditional and modest Korean up bringing but he was separated from his mother at the age of four and the lack of maternal love is evident in his photography. Women appear faceless and untouchable by blurring, out of focus and reflections. This is evident in the photographs below.
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| Woman Pressed against Glass, Paris, 2003. |
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| Reflection of a Woman, Paris, 1999. |
In Woman Pressed against Glass a woman is on the other side of the glass making her untouchable. In Reflection of a Woman her face appears in a reflection and gives the image of a face mask, you can not depict the face clearly due to the horizontal and diagonal lines. The lines lead you into the picture but cut through the face like it is not really there at all.
The image below is the one selected to close his exhibition at the Rick Wester Fine Art Exhibition in the U.S.A.
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| Dog on the Beach, Holland, 2005. |
This shot is very strange but beautiful at the same time. I get the impression that the dog has made an epic journey across the ocean and the way his legs are positioned suggests he is looking back one last time before carrying on. The V-shaped vignette draws the viewer through the picture and it could also be the dogs field of vision. My own interpretation is that the image creates hope that you can achieve your goals.
In 1998 Baak moved to Paris to pursue his photography, he wandered around the city at night capturing it's many layers, it seems that film noir, low key lighting is his favourite style to shoot. My own work is very similar to Baaks in the way that I use street lights at night to cast subjects into shadow. My work for my manipulation assignment is taken at night and converted to black and white and has a very similar look and style to Baaks'. The stark lighting from streetlights adds to the effect as you can see in a comparison below.
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Jehsong Baak |
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| One of my own images for the manipulation assignment |
Although it goes without saying that Baaks' image is far superior, I'd like to think I am improving at this technique.
Your research is going really well Ian, your covering all the right points and comparing the work to your own in context :) The images you showed me last Wednesday were great, I'm really pleased you've achieved what you set out too! Your labeling your blogs correctly and hitting D criteria...well done :)
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