RED INK

In the resulting photographs, his lighting is complimentary yet forensic, scrutinizing the sheen of the propagandistic settings he visited during a trip that was heightened by the looming possibility of nuclear war. In a photograph taken at Pyongyang Orphans’ Secondary School, uniformed students sit in individual cubicles, like office workers, while a washed-out shade of pink pervades the classroom. The students look directly into the camera, save for a boy who has his eyes downturned. When I asked Pinckers about moments like these, where cracks in the North Koreans’ polished façade begin to show, he told me, “There’s a subversiveness that creeps into this kind of constructed situation. You can never really put a finger on it. You’re never really sure of anything.” – José Ginarte, A Photographer’s Search for Cracks in North Korea’s Propaganda Machine, The New Yorker, 9 September 2017