Atelier 41 Class 8: First Experiment for the Main Project

This week, we started work on our main project. My project idea was shared last week as below.

My proposal

Photography Project Proposal | Joonki Song

I'd like to pursue these three themes and choose one later.

Theme 1: Remembering mother

My mother, who lives in Korea, is getting old with health issues. My father passed away four years ago, and for most of my life, I focused heavily on the complexities of my relationship with him. I realize I have not fully appreciated my mother. I want to honor her generosity, her sensitivity, her deep love for me, and her lifelong love of writing. With two upcoming trips to Korea, in November 2026 and April 2027, I want this project to be a deliberate pivot: to connect with her, to leave her with pleasant memories, and to leave myself a lasting way to remember her. I was inspired by Becky Behar's work with her mother. My aspiration is to show deeper emotion and the stories behind the scenes. My worry is that it becomes a portrait portfolio.

Theme 2: Different but not that different

Using my trips to Korea in November 2026 and April 2027, and my time in the US, I would like to capture the similarities and differences of spaces, objects, and people in Korea and the United States. Specific ideas include street scenes, homes, food, shops, subways, and other urban views. My aspiration is to evoke curiosity, making people want to know more about other cultures. My worry is that it shows differences that are not so unique, ones most people who have traveled to both countries already know.

Theme 3: Courage in our relationships

As I mentioned in the first session, I continue to want to convey courage in my photography. As a leadership coach, I help people find the courage to change: from task oriented to relationship oriented, from autopilot to intentional, from feeling stuck to finding a new option. I am proud of the courage I have taken in my life, and I also understand what keeps people from making changes. Some ideas include fathers and sons (somehow, I see courage in fathers and sons), thresholds such as doorways and first steps, hands reaching or letting go, and roles reversing, like a son teaching his father. My aspiration is to make the audience feel courage through scenes that are not obviously about courage. My worry is that people won't see the connection between the photographs and courage.

Overall approach and goals

Across these themes, I'd like to achieve two things:

1. Beauty, measured by a longer pause than usual.

2. Curiosity: images that make people curious, want to see more, think and imagine, and open up to new perspectives.

Importantly, I'd like to achieve beauty and curiosity through the storytelling of the content rather than through abstraction of objects or how the photos are taken.

So far, I find both goals very difficult. For example, I have yet to develop structured thoughts or practical ways to bring beauty to my photography. I will keep learning from others' work and thinking about different aspects of photography: light, color, composition, and more. For curiosity, these are some of my current ideas: communicating something other than the main subject, comparing and contrasting objects in a unique way, images with multiple meanings, and universal scenes that are not often shown, or not shown well.

What I brought

For this week's discussion, I struggled with what to bring and how to start. I gathered some interesting pictures of my mother into one folder, and I began looking through recent pictures that might connect to people with courage.

Last Friday, I visited the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in Lowell. Over the weekend, I visited NYC and took pictures of city scenes and my friends.

Thinking about my relationship with my father, I took a picture of my friend with his son. I see "father and son" as a moment of courage. Looking at that photo now, I could have directed them to pose more intentionally.

In the end, I brought these nine photos to class.