Profile: Life is beautiful for photojournalist Nick Danziger
Recently back from North Korea, the documentary photographer says he finds beauty in ordinary people doing ordinary things
It's no surprise to learn that, as a child, British photojournalist Nick Danziger idolised Tintin, the intrepid young reporter who is the central character of the comics series created by Belgian cartoonist Hergé.
"I've always travelled. I left home for the first time when I was 12 years old, inspired by Tintin … adventure was always there," says Danziger by phone from Monaco, his current base. This month his work brings him to Hong Kong for the launch of "Above the Line: People and Places in the DPRK", which will run at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai from April 9-28.
The photographs on display are from more than 7,000 taken in North Korea in 2013 when Danziger travelled there under the auspices of the British Council, visiting the cities of Pyongyang, Nampo, Wonsan and Sariwon. The exhibition shows people doing ordinary things - women swimming in the ocean, a man waiting for a tram, students walking down a street - as well as less-ordinary sights such as a much-decorated hero of the Korean war on his way to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in his Mercedes, dancers practising in a car park before a performance at the Arirang Mass Games, and a glimpse into the routines of workers on a collective farm.
It's a fascinating and rare glimpse into the communist country of almost 25 million people that has the dubious honour of being the world's most militarised society. It is also a great example of what Danziger does best: providing a peephole into a country, in particular isolated countries, showing the real side of its people and often shattering preconceived perceptions.
"Each day in North Korea was taken up with meeting people and encouraging them to talk about their lives, so that a picture emerges of individuals whose smallest pleasures are not all that different from people elsewhere, however strange or limiting their circumstances may appear to us," he says. "I wasn't interested in showing people carrying guns, but was more interested in how they lived."