Hofstra Documentary Photography Spring 2012

This photo was taken by David Guttenfelder  on Feburary 16^th 2012  this was a ceremony that took place in North Korea. It was in honor of Kim Jong-Il the late supreme leader of North Korea.  His son Kim Il-un is now left to fill his fathers large shoes.

This photo in particlour is important at least to me because it is shows the new young leader in a light that I feel to be true.  In this picture Jon-un is standing out in this picture not only because his jet black jacket stands out of the row of dark olive green martinis to the right of him.  He is also certainly away from the pack, I feel as though being the lone man on top of the castle can get pretty lonely.  I can not forget that his fathers death was just a few months ago he must still be morning his fathers death.  This is a public event and it is certainly of most importance for him to show no pain.  The entire worlds eyes are on this man, he is the ruler of a country that Western society denies and he must lead a country that has been under the same ruler for nearly two decades.

With this photograph I really think the color template is sweet.  The row of red roses behind the line of officers are a perfect match and the Guttenfelder’s POV could not have been better to line the two images together.  Also you get that feeling of isolation because Kim is all the way to the right of the frame.  If the photographer decided to get pan more to the right we would have probably seen Jon-un surrounded by other officers and probably taking that imagery out by doing so.

His body language does most of the talking anyway.  This is a great picture, I am going to look up more work from this photographer after seeing his work for the Associated Press.