The World Photography Organisation announced KyeongJun Yang (South Korea) as the winner of the fifth annual ZEISS Photography Award. Responding to the brief Seeing Beyond: Discoveries, Yang won for his series Metamorphosis, exploring the immigrant experience. Also announced are the nine shortlisted photographers.
For this year’s brief, photographers were asked to submit a series of works focused on the theme of discoveries that transform our everyday lives. These could range from personal revelations to scientific and technological breakthroughs or ideas that led to social change. In Metamorphosis, Yang presents a series of black & white images comprising portraits and still life each depicting or representative of Julie Chen, a young woman who emigrated to the USA from Mainland China at the age of twelve following her parent’s separation.
Each photograph is paired with Chen’s writings and quoted dialogue related to her experiences as an immigrant, feelings of loneliness and conflicted sense of identity. For Yang, currently an international senior journalist student at the University of Texas at Austin, Chen’s experiences strongly link to his feelings of isolation and strangeness while also echoing those of many others. As the 2020 winner, Yang receives €12,000 worth of ZEISS lenses of his choice and €3,000 to cover costs for a photography project.
Q&A with KyeongJun Yang, ZEISS Photography Award 2020 winner
Firstly, congratulations on being the ZEISS Photography Award winner for 2020 with your series Metamorphosis. Tell us, how do you feel about your win?
Winning this award still feels like a dream. I am glad not only because I’ve won, but also because now I know I’m not the only person who likes my images. I’m happy my photographs have been enjoyed by others, somehow they don’t seem as lonely anymore.
Do you often shoot in block & white? Why does this aesthetic lend itself to your practice?
In terms of film choice, I alternate between colour and black & white. There are many reasons behind my choice of using black & white for an image. The main reason why I used monochrome for this series was to remain as objective as possible. When I shoot in colour, I find it more difficult to stay unbiased.
You shot the project on a Bronica SQA. What ore the benefits of shooting with a medium format camera?
Shooting with a medium format camera helps me slow down the shooting process, giving me time to think more before pressing the shutter. I’ve always wanted to try the 6×6 aspect ratio and I really enjoyed working with medium format. I aim to proceed onto 4×5 large format in the future.
Metamorphosis is an intriguing take on immigration and loss of identity. We follow Julie, who immigrated from China to the US as a child. Was there on element of this series that’s biographical? We see in your entry form for the competition you entered South Korean as your nationality but you currently reside in the US.
I am an international, senior journalism student at the University of Texas. Although I’m not an immigrant like Julie, I empathise with her situation. The feelings of isolation and loneliness are always with me. I think everyone can relate to these feelings, helping the series to feel very personal and universal simultaneously.
In each image caption, you include quotes from your subject Julie, who immigrated from China to America when she was 12 years old. Tell us how you collaborated with her for this project.
As for the captions, around half were from an interview with Julie before we started shooting. The other half were written by Julie after she’d seen the photographs. I used some of the lines from our initial interview to inspire myself while creating the series’ visual outline. I wanted her to write down what she’d felt about the images because this project’s focus was about her, not me.
Can you tell us more about your decisions for the image edit?
Initially, I intended to make this series feel like a very short book. I didn’t want to bore the audience, rather for them to see a narrative flow between the collection of images. I tried to sequence the photographs in a such way that there’s an introduction, development, climax and conclusion. It was also important not every photograph be a portrait of Julie but that every image is about her.
As part of your prize you’ll receive $3,000 to pursue a project of your choice. Have you had any thoughts on what this project might be?
Over the last few months, many things have happened to my father. I’ve witnessed sides to him that I’ve never seen before in my 27 years. He’s shown love and hate, we’ve had tears and hugs, he’s shown his masculinity and vulnerability. For my next project I want to capture him not as my father, but as everyone’s dad.
This year’s winning and shortlisted works were judged by Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director, FORMAT International Photography Festival & Artistic Director, QUAD; Max Ferguson, Freelance Photo Editor; and Simon Lovermann, Founder & Artistic Director, De Greif.
The Sony World Photography Awards 2020 exhibition which was set to feature images by the winner and shortlist has been cancelled due to the current coronavirus situation. The World Photography Organisation and ZEISS recognise the impact this has on the ZEISS Photography Award 2020 photographers and are working on a series of online initiatives to support and celebrate their works.
www.worldphoto.org/zeiss-photography-award
