Here in Pyongyang people are marking what would have been the 70th birthday of Kim Jong Il. Feb. 16 has been declared a national holiday known as the Day of the Shining Star.
AP’s Jean H. Lee reports that “North Korea’s grief has taken on a supernatural air: Mountains glow crimson, lakes shake, a family of bears weeps by the side of a road, hundreds of shrieking magpies hover over mourning sites”. (That’s what DPRK’s state media has said).
I didn’t get to photograph any of that stuff but here ‘s a slideshow collected in the HuffPost showing some of my AP photos this week.
I’m so grateful to National Geographic Magazine, and the AP, for supporting the coverage of Japan’s Nuclear Refugees. Special thanks to NGM editor Susan Welchman, The Hoshi Family, and assistant Noriko Hayashi. World Press Photo 2012, 3rd prize General News stories.
And here’s a list and links to my past WPP recognized photographs.
2009 2nd Prize, People in the News
2006 1st Prize, Daily Life stories
2005 1st Prize, General News
2005 2nd Prize, Sports Features
2004 1st Prize, Daily Life
2001 2nd Prize, People in the News
I’m going to be spending a lot of time in freezing cold Pyongyang. We opened a new AP bureau in North Korea today.
Here’s the official announcement by the AP.
A selection of my 2011 Year End photos taken while covering Japan’s tsunami and nuclear crisis, Afghanistan’s opium wars, and daily life inside North Korea.
Just before North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died, the skies glowed red above sacred Mount Paektu and the impenetrable sheet of ice at the heart of the mystical volcano cracked with a deafening roar, according to KCNA.
A set of photos or Jean H. Lee’s explanation on how the mythmaking machine works inside the Cult of Kim.
Kim Jong Il’s funeral procession passes slowly through Kim Il Sung square as the moment changes to weeping women standing along the roadside in the snow.
Like other foreign journalists, I couldn’t be in Pyongyang today to cover the funeral procession of Kim Jong Il. Instead, I made screen grabs from the TV feed for the AP wire.
This was an accidental, but pretty frame.
AP has launched the North Korea Journal, an interactive updated daily with photos, videos, essays, sounds, and tweets from inside the DPRK. Check back for the latest photos and essays.
