© Jehsong Baak

Jehsong cap­tured not the world that he lives in, but reflects the inner uni­verse he lives by, he described him­self as (he puts it can­didly) “I’m a nar­cis­sis­tic pho­tog­ra­pher”, a splen­did truth that many pho­tog­ra­phers refuse to admit.

Little to be known we both shared some com­mon path of our past:

From age 22 to 29, Baak stopped tak­ing pic­tures. Baak refers to this period in his life as “hiber­na­tion,” Baak reminded him­self of Jon Rush’s story about oys­ters bear­ing pearls. Baak told the story in an inter­view with Shots Magazine (Shots 99, spring 2008): “He said that oys­ters need salt in order to sur­vive, but that it’s painful when salt comes in con­tact with their flesh. The suf­fer­ing oys­ter pro­duces a fluid to cope with the pain and the fluid and salt mixed together pro­duces a pearl. He told me to go out there and make my own pearls.”

We often let our­selves being car­ried away only to find our true nature.

I had the honor to meet and briefly con­versed with Jehsong in Siem Reap dur­ing the Angkor Photo Festival, in which his work was among the fea­tured and is a per­sonal favorite of mine.

You can hide behind the spot­light, or choose to shy away behind the lens, but you always know a true pas­sion when you see one. Right, Jehsong?