Funerary Portraits for Those Who Can't Afford Them

Funerary Portraits for Those Who Can't Afford Them

Youngjoo Lee
Youngjoo Lee Write a comment
Portraits are required at conventional South Korean funerals. But in a country where over half of the elderly population live below the poverty line, more Koreans can’t even afford that. Here’s a photographer who offered to take free portraits of the seniors in Jongno, Seoul.
 
 
Cover image: Funerary portraits by Kim Kwang-an. (Source: Courtesy of Kim Kwang-an)
 
 *
Read more about the lives of the elderly in South Korea, a country where around half of the elderly population live below the poverty line:
deathelderly povertyfuneralfunerary portraitsJongnoke videophotographySeoulSouth Korea
1 Free articles
read this month

Help KOREA EXPOSÉ grow by subscribing

You can read without a limit if you subscribe!

Powered by Bluedot, Partner of Mediasphere
Subscribe
Close

You might also like

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

Ethics Be Damned: South Korean Journalism Fails

I am from South Korea, but I make it a point not to write or speak in Korean about this country. That my Korean language skills have ossified from disuse is only one reason; it is more that my brushes with South Korean media are rarely uplifting. A case in

Emily Singh
Members Free to read

Drugs in South Korea: A Silent Crisis

In 2014, pop star Park Bom, of the group 2NE1 made headlines with her alleged drug usage back in October 2010. The singer had ordered 82 amphetamine pills labelled ‘gummy bears’ from the U.S. and dispatched them to her grandmother’s address in the port city of Incheon