End frame: Lake Julien by Joshel Namkung

Dipak Chowdhury

Photography is a passion that I nurture alongside my day job as a research manager. I have been actively creating images since 2008. All of my work is with a 35mm digital camera. My work requires a lot of travel. I carry my camera if I can make time to go out and make images. Many of my images are from such travels.

chowdhurys.smugmug.com

For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which – in visual terms – questions and decides simultaneously. In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by great economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression. One must always take photos with the greatest respect for the subject and for oneself.~Henri Cartier-Bresson

When Charlotte emailed me with a request to write an End Frame article, I was delighted and concerned at the same time. I was delighted to have an opportunity to write for On Landscape, which I have been enjoying for many years. I was concerned because I had to make the difficult choice of picking one photo out of many that I can think of to write about. After some thinking and looking through some of my favourite photo books, I decided to talk about a relatively less known photographer from Korea and the US – Johsel Namkung (1919-2013). He was born in Korea in 1919 and moved to the US in 1947.

The first time I was exposed to his work was through the book, Johsel Namkung, A Retrospective, from Cosgrove Editions (2012). It is a beautifully done large size photo book that I would recommend to anyone interested in landscape photography. I found two particular aspects of Joshel's work that resonated with my own interests. The first is his close up images of the natural world, similar to Eliot Porter’s "intimate landscape”, for which I had a natural fondness.