ARGUS PAUL
  • Photography
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      • 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

reflections INside the Seoul Metro


Photographing the Seoul Metro is a time of reflection for me. 

Although I was born in South Korea, I was raised in a rural, predominantly white area of the United States that culturally distanced me from my mother’s country. Since moving to Seoul, I’ve made a habit of haunting the metro. I can spend days jumping from line to line, taking in as much as I can. I could say it’s because I want to go somewhere new but that isn’t the full truth; I’m exactly where I want to be.

The metro is where the “real” Seoul congregates: true lives that won’t be portrayed in tourism ads or K-pop songs. Travelers on our own journeys, we pass and disappear in a blink of an eye. Here we are all away from home.

Is that where our similarities end? We may share heritage and fleeting travels, but as a foreign gyopo, I fear I won’t be able to overcome my sense of separation.

The commuters remain to me as apparitions, echoes of light and shadow on the subway walls and windows. Is it an otherness I feel inclined to understand or facets of myself? All I know is I must raise my camera — Click.

I am left amid reflections as trains of thought prepare to depart. 
서울 지하철을 촬영하는 것은 저에게는 성찰의 시간입니다.

저는 한국에서 태어났지만 백인들이 주를 이루는 미국의 시골에서 자랐기 때문에 문화적으로 제 조국과 거리가 멀어졌습니다. 서울로 이사온 이후로 지하철을 맴도는 버릇이 생겼습니다. 노선에서 노선으로 넘어가면서 모든 것을 흡수하면서 하루를 보낼 수 있습니다. 어쩌면 새로운 곳을 가고 싶어서라고 할 수 있겠지만 그것은 완전한 사실이 아닙니다, 저는 이미 제가 있고 싶은 곳에 있습니다.

지하철은 “진짜”의 서울이 모이는 곳입니다: 관광 광고나 K-Pop 노래에서 보고 들을 수 없는 진짜 인생들. 우리만의 여행을 하는 여행자들, 우리는 눈 깜짝할 사이에 지나가고 사라집니다. 이곳에서 우리는 모두 집에서 떨어져 있습니다.

그것만이 우리의 닮은 점일까요? 우리는 유산과 잠깐의 여행을 공유하겠지만 저는 외국인 교포로서 분리 의식을 못 이겨낼 것 같아 두렵습니다.

통근자들은 저에게 유령으로 남습니다, 지하철의 벽들과 창문들에 메아리 치는 빛과 그림자들. 제가 이해하고 싶은 다른 느낌일까요, 아니면 제 자신의 어떤 면들일까요? 제가 아는 것은 카메라를 들어야 한다는 것 뿐입니다 – 찰칵.

저는 생각의 흐름이 떠날 준비를 하는 동안 사색 속에 남겨집니다.

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Jangam to Sangbong. 장암역 > 상봉역
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Gangnam-gu Office Station 1. 강남구청역 1
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Seolleung Station. 선릉역
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Bupyeong-gu Office to Onsu. 부평구청역 > 온수역
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Gangnam-gu Office Station 2. 강남구청역 2
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Express Bus Terminal Station. 고속터미널역
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Jeongja Station. 정자역
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Janghanpyeong Station. 장한평역
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Sunae to Suwon. 수내역 > 수원역
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Samseong Station. 삼성역
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Bokjeong Station. 복정역
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Wangsimni to Jamsil. 왕십리역 > 잠실역