A photographer who only takes pictures of lovers in the mountains – Joung Sang Gi

Every winter, photographer Joung Sang Gi goes up to the 1100 highlands of Mt. Hallasan in Jeju Island with his camera. It is where the most beautiful and attractive lover he has been fascinated by, is living. It has been more than 20 years since he began studying photography on his own, and it has been more than 30 years since he moved to Jeju from mainland, Korea. Now he is undoubtedly a Jeju resident, body or soul. He has captured a variety of Jeju's landscapes, birds, flowers, people, sunsets, and sunrises as his subjects for his works.

It was one winter day 10 years ago when he met the lover. He was on the way up from Yeongsil course of Mt. Hallasan to Witse Oreum on the hiking trail. He encountered red fruits on the top of a beautiful tree. It was a fateful encounter. What amazed him was the fact that the red berries are spinning like a bird's nest. He photographed them with a telephoto lens. Later, he realized that it was a red mistletoe (Viscumalbum f rubroauranticum) that only inhabits Mt. Halla in Korea. From then on, he fell in love with the ecology and charm of 'Red Mistletoe', and until now, whenever winter comes, he’s been searching for a mistletoe, the lover and filming.

In the middle of winter, the red fruits in the white snow,, and the fact that they live

only in the highlands of 1100 or more, was mesmerizing. After that, he so deeply fell in love with the red fruits and became his most beloved lover. Unchanged for 10 years, he is addicted to red mistletoe. That’s the reason why every winter, he goes deep into the mountains like a crazy man and searches for the lover, mistletoe. He sets out to find his hidden lover in the mountains while wandering around the mountain where the snow is more than knee-high. He has experienced many times that were dangerous for the most beautiful form, shape, and composition of the berries. He once even rolled in a valley.

It's like a young Norwegian artist Christine Watney who tenaciously searches for only the back of a Norwegian white man, that is, a bald man. Just like the artists Michael Kenya of Solseom who has traveled all over the world, and Christine who captured only the back of the head, he insists on finding only the subject. red mistletoe.

The red mistletoe is known to be a semi-parasitic plant that parasitizes other trees and produces chlorophyll by photosynthesis on its own. There are several types of mistletoe, such as tail mistletoe, mistletoe, and red mistletoe. Among them, red mistletoe can only be seen on Jeju Island, and in winter, red fruits are opened, and birds that eat the fruits are propagated everywhere. Because it grows in the highest places, it is also called the candle of the sky.

Artist Joung focuses everything on a plant called mistletoe, which parasitizes on other trees and sucks the sap of that tree to become parasitic. Mistletoe parasitic trees grow twisted. Eventually, the mistletoe eats its nutrients in the middle of where it sits, so the tree becomes as small as polio, and is eventually amputated. By adjusting the angle to its landscape and color, photographer Joung captures the mystery of life and death that takes place there, and the bloody struggle and order of nature that embraces the desperate moments of life and death. 

Photographer Joung often writes, “After eating the fruit, the cockroach bird sits on an oak tree to defecate. The seeds in the feces of mistletoe attach to the tree branch, take root, and live as one with the parasitic tree. I want to unveil the narrative of that mistletoe.”

Now the red mistletoe is the artist. If the fruit wasn't red, he wouldn't have photographed it. Furthermore, he asked if the contrast between the color of the black tree and the red mistletoe was homogeneous with the passionate life of Jeju people, who had cultivated their lives in black volcanic stone fields. The fruits that live in the icy winter were thought to be similar to the lives of Jeju people while raising their children in a barren environment. This is the obvious reason he unifies the mistletoe with the people of Jeju and likes red mistletoe.

As you can see, only three colors exist in his works, attracting intense and impressive attention. One is all red, black and white. Photographer Philippe Halsman once defined and named “photography is painting with light”. Yes. Joung Sang Gi is a photographer and at the same time ink painter who draws a single red ink painting with the light of the camera lens. The reason he is a photographer and not a photographer is because he has his own style and perspective like an ink painting. In the meantime, we have seen many pictures like pictures, but it is also true that pictures like pictures are rarely seen.

Don Hong Oai, a photographer from China, is famous for taking pictures of oriental paintings. Now the photographer Joung Sang Gi is Korea’s Don Hong-oh Ai. Photographer Jung's mistletoe is reminiscent of an enchanting red ink painting, an ink painting in harmony with nature. Photographer Joung wanted to unveil the moving and beautiful narrative of the red berries living as one with the tree. The photo with his lover is so true.

Joung,Sang Gi

www.정상기.com

www.joungsanggi.com

New York, USA= Kim Deokhui, staff reporter  ajtwoddlejrg@nvp.co.kr