SJKoo Photo

Day 9: Red

It’s my daily routine. I’m a full time photographer wanna be and part time body building enthusiast lol. Day and night, I’m coming to this place. Not particularly to this location, but this 24hr trying to be fit place.

If I wasn’t a photographet and if I was better looking with better proportional body than I might have try to pursue body building as part time career. However, I am cursed with this very typical full Korean physique: big head/short legs/short arms/not photogenic. Maybe the reason why I’m behind the camera instead of in front of it.

Day 8: Window

Window can represent a lot of things besides a piece of glass within a frame of a structure. It can represent dream, world, future, viewpoint, opportunity and many more signs and symbols -

Personally, I like the idea of looking into the windows rather than looking out. - What can that be?? 

Do I like looking into myself? perhaps I care more about the inner soul than external things? Or does that mean I’m always looking in the past?? Or I could be that I’m self conscious? - anyways that’s an interesting question to answer and analyze…

Maybe, that should be one of the question I ask people when I interview them for the project “Do you like to look out of the window? or look into the window??” -

Looking into the window sounds a bit creepy… if someone takes it literally- it’s like peeking into someone else’s life… or maybe, maybe that’s what I’m doing??? I look into the window- as I’m looking into other people’s lives and their stories… Hmmmm

Day 5: Smile

There’s no one in the world who puts more smile on me than my parents. There are times when I can’t or don’t show them enough love or gratitude towards them… I am who I am today because of their teachings, guidance, love and care. 

My pop as a pastor guided me internally. Showed me and taught me how live for the sake of the others, always put others before myself and be true to who I am. He was really strict on me… and that kept me checked till now. Thank you pops!

Mama Koo is the sweetest person in the world. She loves love loves loves people. You can tell that by how much food she makes for others. LOL. I think I’ve gotten my affection for people from mom side. Sometimes she worries a bit too much, but that’s how our relationship has always been I guess. I have always been the trouble make growing up. Ever since I can remember, I was the one getting hit by a car in the middle of the day and made mom looked into every hospital in the city I lived in because I forgot to call her to let her know which hospital I was in. I was the one who missed the church service on Sunday by telling her I have to goto school for volunteer work, but I went to ‘break dance battle’ with my dance crew, instead. On and on… I can list all my mischiefs as a young boy. But she has supported me on everything I do. I am really thankful for her.

Day 3: neighborhood 

I was walking around the neighborhood with my sis and noticed a filed full of dandelion. And I remember when I was young, I used blow its seeds and loved the way the it just floats and sails in the air. I tried to catch them, but there was no way I could get my hands on them.

Dandelions are the only plant that anybody in the world can spot and name it. Its yellow flower and white puffy seeds are quite beautiful to look at. Yet, they are one of the most strongest and easily spreading plant out there as well. Its root goes down so deep and it only needs a bit of sunlight to be able to bloom. 

And as I was taking these images of my sister making dandelion snow, I started to think about the strength of dandelion and related myself to it… hahaha… it sounds pretty lame now, but at the time it was quite powerful or maybe not…

[As a young child, I used to dream about so many different things and  thought I could be anything I wanted to be. I remember I used to blow the dandelion seeds and made wish as each seed sailed away and spread around the filed. I wanted my name or my legacy to spread out and plant its root deep around the world. It sounded pretty believable and awesome at the moment… I mean, I was a young boy… what did I know? As I gotten older, I realized all those wishes I made were like weeds… had to be pulled out and weeded out for healthy grasses to grow to make beautiful lawn. So, dream of world domination, building flying cars, invent a machine that allows people to communicate with sprits, winning a gold medal in olympics and many more had to go away. But just like it’s strong survival instinct, one of my dream kept growing and growing back despite how many people had stepped on it and tried to weed it out. That dream is to be a photographer. And I know I’ll be spreading my photography around the world now and one day it will plant its root deep down and make SungJoon Koo mean something to others.]

Anyhow, it’s important to support the dreams of little ones and guide them to the right way. Become a good mentor to others and show your mentees the how wonderful the world is. And they have endless capacity to become whoever they want to be. Don’t let others try to weed them out because of whatever reason they come up with. Be strong and pursue your dream. Focus and plant your root deep. Be yourself! It’s important to have endless dream and dream big!

Day 2. Fruits.