Pictures of North Korea
Photographer Yannis Kontos shows us life in a totalitarian country with his brilliant gallery of photos from North Korea in the April edition of The Digital Journalist. For three years, the North Korean government rejected Kontos' visa applications to travel there as a photojournalist. So instead, Kontos visited North Korea using a tourist visa and surreptitiously took pictures beyond the few places he was officially allowed to photograph. Some of my favorites include images of a horribly drab housing complex, a children's clothing exhibition in "Department Store No. 1," people in their best suits taking an amusement park ride and a South Korean soldier peering over the shoulder of a North Korean counterpart in the Demilitarized Zone. Kontos' gallery is a terrific example of a courageous photojournalist telling a story that we otherwise wouldn't see. Thank you Phil Kaplan for letting me know about The Digital Journalist. http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0704/kontos.html
For more of Kontos' journalism from around the world, go to yanniskontos.com.