[Joseonhee's Frame] Trees of the Desert

Even though trees are of the same species, those growing in barren soil have fewer sprawling branches, fewer leaves, and thicker foliage compared to trees growing in fertile soil. Trees growing in the desert are even more extreme. They sometimes abandon leaves altogether, focusing on protecting their roots and branches, and grow thorns instead of leaves.

I lived like a desert tree. I minimized the leaves I could grow, thickening my own trunk as I lived. Like a tree twisting its branches toward the sunlight, forming a different shape.

It was not easy to come up from the countryside and step into the fashion scene in Cheongdam-dong, Seoul. Around the time when the poetry collection titled "On Windy Days, I Go to Apgujeong" was popular, I first came to a place called Apgujeong for an assistant interview. I curiously watched the dazzlingly glamorous crowd, so different from me, and had to wait like a plaster statue for three hours. And the interview lasted only five minutes. I was deflated.

Doesn't this scene not suit me? Can I survive? I felt anxious and uncomfortable. Anyway, after many twists and turns, I stepped in, but the next challenge was even bigger. A new world I had neither heard of nor experienced...

The worldview I had learned and experienced until then? My outlook on life? No, even without going that grand, our common sense was so different that the language itself sounded foreign. Most of the jargon was foreign words, mostly English or Japanese. Nowadays, there's a trend to avoid using them even if you know them, but back then, I couldn't even understand what the trendy word "ganjinage" (stylishly) meant.

Since it wasn't the internet era like now, I had no choice but to ask, but all I got were cold looks from those around me, as if saying, "You don't even know that?" So I always tell my assistants, "Don't be ashamed of not knowing! Keep being ashamed of not knowing. So ask anything."

Having survived over twenty years in that glamorous yet cold world, so different from me like water and oil, I developed a habit of pressing the shutter toward trees standing alone but steadfast wherever I go. Moreover, I liked trees that people thought were dead, or perhaps really were dead, those with few or no leaves, covered only with thorns.

Those trees enduring harsh sandstorms in the middle of the desert without even leaves looked so beautiful to me, and so I pressed the shutter toward them. While doing so, I thought, I must endure steadfastly too! So what if I am different from other trees or other people? I just need to take photos that are true to myself.

Even if to them I was just a country bumpkin, a dark and unattractive female assistant, a mere errand runner, I had to overcome it. Tears always welled up on the bus ride home.

Perhaps thorns grew on my body to protect me as well. Like kids these days, I could have ended with a fragile mentality, but my rough speech and ignorant courage became the thorns protecting me. Looking back after more than twenty years, those protective thorns from my childhood sometimes hurt others, and so they came back to me again.

And sometimes, when something happens in human relationships, I wonder, "Am I the strange one?" "Am I overreacting?" "Am I too different?" Yes, I am too different. Without realizing it, I adapted to my life like a tree of the same species but grown differently.

Suddenly, I think about it. Weren't the trees I felt beautiful and pressed the shutter toward all different in appearance? Because they were different and unique, didn't I press the shutter toward them?

They could have such thick branches because they endured the sandstorms. Doesn't their minimal beauty come from having few or no leaves?

I am doing the same. Rather than growing more branches of my photography, I am growing them thicker. Rather than having more people I love, I am deepening that love. Just like a desert tree reduces the number of leaves and thickens itself.

Jo Sunhee, Photographer / Professor, Department of Photography and Imaging, Kyungil University