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A Life of Absence

A Life of Absence interrogates the arc of a life through its remaining traces. The series moves from a fractured beginning and a childhood dream to a preserved silhouette and a distorted memory, culminating in a timeless question of existence.

Awards

Photographer of the Year Contest

2025

Nominee

Conceptual

Non Professional

Nominee

Storytelling

Non Professional

A Life of Absence

A Life of Absence interrogates the arc of a life through its remaining traces. The series moves from a fractured beginning and a childhood dream to a preserved silhouette and a distorted memory, culminating in a timeless question of existence.

About Artist

Leebaeck Choi

FFor over thirty years, my photography was rooted in black and white, using boundaries, structures, and silence to question existence and disappearance. While black and white traditionally relies on stark forms and precise distinctions, my recent transition into color allowed subjects to dissolve, spread, and embrace uncertainty. Now, I am expanding this experimentation back into monochrome, breaking down forms using only the raw essence of light, shadow, and texture. Through this continuous evolution, my long-standing questions about being have found a new language in abstraction. To capture this, I rely entirely on pure optical physics, explicitly rejecting digital manipulation and AI. By utilizing vintage lenses at maximum aperture, embracing intentional lens flare, and pushing the boundaries of out-of-focus blur, I explore how existence proves itself through traces, intervals, and the physical interaction between light and time. Whether in color or black and white, my photography moves away from direct representation while remaining deeply connected to physical reality. This pursuit is difficult, but that difficulty is exactly what makes photography endlessly compelling to me.

Leebaeck Choi

Photographic Areas of Focus

Abstract, Minimalism, Minimalism, Nature, People, Portrait, Travel

Location

South Korea

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