FOREWORD
Cha-gyeong : Borrowed Scenery
Eight seasons that
I wanted to appreciate
together with you
“新作宮室 儉而不陋 華而不侈” sinjaggungsil geom-ibullu hwaibulchi
Kim Bu-sik, a Goryeo civil officer and scholar, mentioned the Baekje palace architecture in <Samguksagi>, a historical record of the Three Kingdoms of Korea in medieval times. He wrote, "the new palace was built—frugal but not shabby, glamorous but not luxurious." I aspire my pictures and myself to be such.
This is the first book published from my "Korean cultural heritage" photo series from 2014 to 2021. In this book, I focused on the various aspects of Jongmyo Shrine and Changdeokgung Palace.
Jongmyo Shrine and Changdeokgung Palace are pleasant to visit any time of the year, but there are particularly beautiful days, standing out the season's charm. Unfortunately, it has become more and more challenging to catch the moment as the boundaries of the season gradually fade, and air pollution intensifies. Still, after visiting the same place steadily for years, I could face and record some decisive moments of breathtaking beauty.
People often ask if I photoshopped the pedestrians out, but none of the photos in this book were modified. I am not sure if it was because the time was early or it rained, but there were many cases where there was no one around except me when I was taking pictures of the sceneries too beautiful to be seen just by me. I decided to publish this book because I wanted to share those moments with others, which I had collected one by one quietly by myself.
The printed picture cannot ever completely reproduce the touching moment when the light came through the viewfinder is imprinted on my heart. Still, this book is meaningful because there are many pictures of trees and flowers together with those of the buildings. In Korean architecture, beauty is completed only when it mingles with the surrounding nature. The concept of "chagyeong," which means "borrowing scenery from the outside," is very important. Although the buildings can be replaced with sturdy woods and shiny roof tiles, the time-withholding nature can never be.
For example, next to the Geumcheongyo Bridge in Changdeokgung Palace, a zelkova tree has stood there for over 670 years. When I started taking pictures in 2014, the tree was still healthy and magnificent. However, in 2019, the barks began to peel off as the inside of the tree started to rot. Despite all the attention it got, it has lost its charm. Compared to its prime time recorded in the Changdeokgung Palace brochure published in 1975, now the tree looks scrawny, and even the scenery around Geumcheongyo Bridge has become hollow. Like this, old trees, flowers, and dense forests covering all over are as crucial as buildings themselves in the palace architecture. Therefore, I treated them as the main characters rather than the supporting roles and recorded them as much as possible. Each picture is marked with the year taken, so later, when someone became interested in Jongmyo Shrine or Changdeokgung Palace opened this book, I hope they can find the differences in sceneries between now and then, as I did with the brochure.
In that way, although the photos in this book are in the past, they are also in the future. The moment you press the shutter, the scenery becomes the past, yet after many seasons, someone will stand there and see a similar landscape in the future. I believe the cold winter will go, and spring will eventually come to us. Therefore, this book is also arranged in the order of summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Rather than closing the last chapter with a cold winter landscape, I thought it would be better to bid farewell with a warmer scene.
In the first chapter of each season, I wrote down the music I listened to while taking pictures, hoping that my experience would be fully conveyed. I also translated my writings in both English and Japanese because I wanted to share Korea's world heritage and beautiful four seasons with people abroad. Although this is an individual project, I tried to refer to proper names, markings, and expressions to deliver accurate information, with the help of the Cultural Heritage Administration website, various related publications, and some out-of-print books. I received assistance with English translation from Hong Hye-bin, studying at Boston University, and my wife helped me with Japanese. I express my sincere gratitude and infinite love to my wife, who took care of me going out to take pictures. And I dedicate this book to my beloved Jae-hee and Eun-jae, who crossed the distant universe and taught us the true happiness of life.
When I first started taking pictures, I focused on something special and intense, but now I am more drawn to see an unknown tree standing like a background or a flower blooming and falling. Sometimes I wonder how they are doing. It won't necessarily be because I got old. It would be just because the relationship has deepened a little. Through this book, I hope the relationship between you and the two places will also deepen a little. And I hope that one relaxing spring day we can accidentally pass by in the same space with a little smile.
