North Korea

Fantastic quality of photos, of one of the world's most isolated and rigid nations. Everything is for show, and reality doesn't get a look in. What lies under the surface?

This book purports to be a photographic journey through North Korea.It fails.The book is divided into 3 parts.Part 1 entitled Appearanes (introduction) is no more than a syncophantic eulogy by the second author(Poivert) of the first authors picures Chancel).The wording of this part is so convoluted,flowery and obscure t..hat it defeats any message it is trying to convey in giving the pictures a "message they do not have.Part 2 entitled A Country Apart (history) is a collection of facts,myths and ledgends that have accumulated over the years and does little to enhance the gravitas of the book.Part 3 is 129pictures.121 of the pictures are of Pyongyang the capital,4are of Panmunjam ,3 are outside the capital while one is a painting.Hardly a picture of North Korea.The Pyongyang pictures are repetative(plackard diplays at the May Day stadium,the Kims,traffic police) pointless(empty rooms,empty spaces,empty roads)while afew are badly lit or exposed.This could hae been a good book with a sensible text and a more balacced spread of pictures.

I've visited the DPRK. This book beautifully illustrates the unique and sometimes chilling bizarreness of the place. A great book.

Chancel's images of North Korea depict an empty, ordered, inhuman landscape apparently only superficially affected by its citizens.Criticized by some for his objectivity and seeming unwillingness to comment overtly on the political situation, the work invokes a sense of emptiness and futility which speaks of oppression and a lack of individualism.The work was shortlisted for the prestigious Deutsch Borse prize and voted best on the shortlist by gallery attendees at London's Photographers gallery.If you want a guide book to the country don't buy it. North Korean guidebooks don't exist (for obvious reasons)