ARGUS PAUL
  • Photography
    • New >
      • Fare Adjustment
    • Ongoing >
      • How to Draw a Line
    • Past Work >
      • 2021 >
        • Reflections Inside The Seoul Metro
      • 2020 >
        • I AM NOT A VIRUS
      • 2019 >
        • Stage Left
      • 2018 >
        • This Is Not an Exit
      • 2017 >
        • Losing Face
        • Heartfelt Welcome
        • School Memories: The Loss in Danwon High
      • 2016 >
        • Wrestling In The Streets Of Seoul
  • Articles / Interviews / Features
    • LENSCRATCH | Argus Paul Estabrook: Half Eye, Half I
    • UP Photographers | Interview with Argus Paul Estabrook
    • Life Framer Journal | Looking Out and In With ARGUS PAUL ESTABROOK
    • LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2021 | Reflections Inside the Seoul Metro
    • ‘What life is about’: LensCulture street photography awards – in pictures
    • New narratives: BJP International Photography 2021 Award Winners revealed
    • The Phoblographer | Argus Estabrook Finds Stories Worth Telling by Using Intimacy
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 Winners
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 | Losing Face: Inside the Fall of South Korea’s President
    • Musée Magazine | Weekend Portfolio: Argus Paul Estabrook
    • 2018 Critical Mass Top 50
    • 2017 Critical Mass Top 50
    • PDN Emerging Photographer | Vol. 10, No. 1
    • CRITIC’S VIEW: Politics, Strangers & Art Not to Miss at Spring/Break 2018
  • Contact
  • CV
  • Photography
    • New >
      • Fare Adjustment
    • Ongoing >
      • How to Draw a Line
    • Past Work >
      • 2021 >
        • Reflections Inside The Seoul Metro
      • 2020 >
        • I AM NOT A VIRUS
      • 2019 >
        • Stage Left
      • 2018 >
        • This Is Not an Exit
      • 2017 >
        • Losing Face
        • Heartfelt Welcome
        • School Memories: The Loss in Danwon High
      • 2016 >
        • Wrestling In The Streets Of Seoul
  • Articles / Interviews / Features
    • LENSCRATCH | Argus Paul Estabrook: Half Eye, Half I
    • UP Photographers | Interview with Argus Paul Estabrook
    • Life Framer Journal | Looking Out and In With ARGUS PAUL ESTABROOK
    • LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2021 | Reflections Inside the Seoul Metro
    • ‘What life is about’: LensCulture street photography awards – in pictures
    • New narratives: BJP International Photography 2021 Award Winners revealed
    • The Phoblographer | Argus Estabrook Finds Stories Worth Telling by Using Intimacy
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 Winners
    • The Magnum and LensCulture Photography Awards 2017 | Losing Face: Inside the Fall of South Korea’s President
    • Musée Magazine | Weekend Portfolio: Argus Paul Estabrook
    • 2018 Critical Mass Top 50
    • 2017 Critical Mass Top 50
    • PDN Emerging Photographer | Vol. 10, No. 1
    • CRITIC’S VIEW: Politics, Strangers & Art Not to Miss at Spring/Break 2018
  • Contact
  • CV
ARGUS PAUL

Of a Premonition​​


​The memory haunts me. And for that I feel fortunate. 

It had been one year since my wife and her grandmother had seen each other. While visiting her family in China, we were able to meet briefly days prior, but this afternoon had been set aside for them to reconnect. Nainai expressed great joy in seeing her favorite granddaughter again but I also noticed how her mood would fluctuate. She’d wander to various parts of her apartment, only to end up in the verandas to look over her town. I always imagined Nainai to be Wendy from Peter Pan; part of her youth frozen in time while Wendy’s body grew old. But now surrounded by mirrors and looking at her own reflection, she seemed preoccupied with thought. She then told me she’d become increasingly nervous about her health and worried this was the last time we’d all be together.  

I assured her that she was fine- but I never got to photograph or see her again. I realize now five months later that I’d shot a portrait of a premonition: Our last afternoon with Nainai.

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