Japanese Photographer Records South Korea's 'Blood, Sweat and Tears'

[Anchor]

There is a Japanese photographer who has spent more than 60 years capturing South Korea's turbulent modern history through his camera lens.

Now in his nineties and still pressing the shutter, this veteran says that South Korea's past years were a history of blood, sweat, and tears.

Reporter Lee Joo-hyoung has the story.

[Reporter]

University students holding a silent protest against the Korea-Japan talks.

Shanties along the Cheonggyecheon stream, once home to the urban poor.

A soldier deploying to the Vietnam War visiting with his mother right before leaving.

These photos were not taken by a South Korean, but by Japanese photojournalist Shisei Kuwabara.

This reporter first met him back in 2008.

Meeting him again after 18 years, he was still active in the field at 90 years old.

A South Korean documentary film has been released that turns the lens back onto Kuwabara, who has always chased his subjects.

Kuwabara, who gained fame for his photos exposing Minamata disease caused by mercury poisoning, has actually taken the most photographs of South Korean modern history.

Since his first visit to South Korea in 1964—when even the road from Gimpo Airport to Seoul was unpaved—he has visited the country more than 100 times, taking over 100,000 photos.

[Shisei Kuwabara / Photojournalist: Because I had a strong interest in social currents and the movement of history, I continually visited turbulent South Korea over a long period.]

Even while facing accusations of "why are you only photographing South Korea's dark sides" and enduring derogatory slurs, he continued to capture South Korean modern history on film.

One of the unforgettable scenes he picked out is the women living in the U.S. military camp towns on the outskirts of Seoul.

[Shisei Kuwabara / Photojournalist: Back when the South Korean economy was struggling, I felt that these women were bringing in foreign currency to the country, whether large or small amounts. It made me feel like crying.]

The final piece of history that the nonagenarian wanted to capture in South Korea may ultimately go unphotographed.

[Shisei Kuwabara / Photojournalist: I thought there might be something like an integration between the South and the North, and I intended to conclude my coverage of South Korea with that, but now I think national unification is realistically somewhat impossible.]

Kuwabara summarized the modern history of South Korea that he witnessed as follows:

[Shisei Kuwabara / Photojournalist: (All of it) truly, it is painful to even put into words. I would like to say it was a history of South Korea's, well, blood, sweat, and tears.]

(Reported by Lee Byung-joo and Choi Dae-woong | Video editing by So Ji-hye | Design by Hwang Se-yeon)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.