My First Print Publication

Publications

Jul 25

When I started practicing photography, it was simply my way to get out of the house and exercise my creative muscle. While I have always had a strong creative urge, my creative pursuits never really went anywhere — my drawing skills are about as well-developed as the average four-year-old, and I have, regrettably, not finished a sketch for a film or a novel.

I never gave photography a serious chance until around the start of this year. Once I began going out on photo walks and taking my camera along with me on trips, something seemed to “click” — a feeling I didn’t get from those other creative pursuits. At that time, I only had a vague idea of what “street photography” was, my only points of reference being a reprint of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment (at my family’s home in Georgia) and a few YouTube videos.

My first six months of photography went by like a whirlwind. I was learning the exposure triangle while trying to figure out what “My Style” was. I was mostly preoccupied with creating pretty rule-of-thirds compositions, which were well-received on Instagram and gave me some confidence to keep on practicing.

In July, Docu Magazine contacted me about creating a collaborative print publication. A few of my friends had also made zines with Docu, so I jumped at the opportunity. I was still finding my confidence as an “artist” and “photographer”, and this collaboration was the biggest validation I could have gotten at the time. For the first time, I really felt as though I was doing “something right”.

My Docu zine includes twenty of my favorite photos from those exciting first six months of practicing photography (January—June 2024), from all around Seoul and Incheon. It was the first time I seriously considered about sequencing and contextualizing my photos into a project, so its creation helped me to grow and take my photography more seriously. I’m proud to present it.

Click here for information about buying a signed copy of my zine.