"The sea always lays people bare. Looking out at the sea in Busan, the photographer says people are 'released somewhere between meaning and sensation.'"
《Busan: A Sea of Relief》 is the first volume in a new photobook series from Street Photography Club (SPC). It gathers 36 photographs by Kim Ji-hun, recording the faces and feelings of people he met at the edge of the city, in the moment.
Page after page, what you feel first is not the sea itself but the air and the gazes passing in front of it. You end up slowly following what the photographer calls "moments of release," when a tangled mind quietly settles.
Faces That Loosen by the Sea
Open the book and the first thing you meet is a column of black smoke in the middle of the city, and the back of one person looking past it. Not an accident, not an incident, just one scene from this city. Following that gaze as it is, the photographer moves slowly between the inside and the outside of Busan.
People stand differently in front of the sea. Hands clasped behind the back, a hood pulled up, shoes off and feet up on the railing. The photographer's camera quietly watches these loosened postures, unguarded moments you rarely see inside the city.
Every photograph is printed in black and white. Where the color drops away, the texture of air and light remains, and the subjects' gazes come forward more clearly. Rather than trying to depict Busan's scenery, the book sets out to record how a person's mind loosens in front of it.
Street Photography Club's First Photobook
We are a culture platform for everyone who wants to record moments on the street. City or countryside, alley or plaza, wherever we stand is a frame. We watch the passing instant, record the true face of everyday life, and share the way people see.
SPC is a small culture platform that brings together the eyes of street photographers. 《Busan: A Sea of Relief》 is its first result, a single volume published as SPC Photobook ISSUE.01. The next issue is already in the works under the name Biotope Seoul (비오톱 서울). It is a series that takes one city per issue and slowly binds the vision of one photographer at a time.
Book Details
- Title Busan: A Sea of Relief (해소의 바다, 부산)
- Photographer Kim Ji-hun
- Publisher 4rest
- Format A5 (modified) / 36 pages
- Price 15,000 won
- ISBN 979-11-992035-25
