A Portrait of Photography (2026)

At 27, Japanese photojournalist Kuwabara Shisei stepped off a plane into a country on the brink of transformation—and never looked back. Now, six decades later, the aging lensman embarks on what he suspects is his farewell voyage to Korea. From the bulldozed alleys of Cheonggyecheon to the shadowy fringes of military camp towns, from the brutal theaters of the Vietnam War to the roar of democracy protests, Shisei has spent a lifetime freezing history's rawest moments in black and white. But this trip is different. He isn't chasing a breaking story; he's chasing ghosts—the faces, the streets, and the struggles that shaped his soul. As he retraces his own footsteps through the wreckage and resilience of a nation, the camera turns inward, capturing a man saying goodbye to the land that made him. This is not just a journey through archives; it's a pilgrimage through memory, where every shutter click echoes a lifetime of bearing witness.