I no longer remember exactly when I took this photograph. According to the date recorded in the file, it was May 4, 2026. At that time, I had just resigned from my previous job and was taking a short period of personal rest while looking for new work. Life still felt tense. I was in a situation where I had to work simply to survive. Each day carried a sense of obligation. In the remaining hours, I would get in the car and drive without any particular destination. Moving through the landscape without purpose became a small opening for breath. If I encountered a scene that matched the state I was in, I wanted to photograph it. The Mountain I Met on an Aimless Drive While driving without knowing where I was going, I came upon a mountain in a place I could not name. It was not a particularly high or famous mountain. It was simply a mountain that had remained there for a long time. The wind was slowly moving the clouds, and through the gaps in those clouds, light filtered down and ...

Introduction When taking photographs, there are moments when the desire to “capture the scene well” becomes stronger. Yet the stronger that desire grows, the more I have felt the air of the place begin to shift. The urge to capture something perfectly can quietly interfere with the presence that already exists there. From that realization, I began to think differently about photography. I no longer wanted to record emotions. I wanted to safeguard a moment. The Meaning of the Presence I Felt While Taking the Photograph On the afternoon of April 30, 2026, I stood on the beach at Anmyeondo Nature Recreation Forest in Taean, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea. The sun had nearly set, and the light had already softened. There was almost no wind. The sea moved very little, and the distant islands and sky remained quietly in place. Rather than feeling a strong emotion, I was more aware that the space itself was already holding a certain presence. It was calm without heaviness—simply present. I...