Is Taking Pictures of North Korea Illegal?
What Happens If You Take a Photo of North Korea?
A woman standing in the middle of a crowd of soldiers. This rare North Korea picture is not supposed to be taken as officials do not allow army pictures.
When you visit families, the guides love it if you take pics to show the world that kids have computers. But when they see there is no electricity, then they ask you to delete it!
Soldiers often help on local farms.
This kind of photo of North Korea is widespread in the West. The caption often explains that North Koreans eat grass from the park. The guides get furious if you take it.
A rare example of an undisciplined kid in North Korea. The bus was driving on the small roads of Samijyon in the north when this kid stood in the middle of the road.
The way you dress is very important in North Korea. In town, you’ll never find anybody dressed poorly. On this day, students were dancing in a park. When I asked to take a picture of them, the girl asked the man to straighten his shirt.
As cars have become more widespread in Pyongyang, the peasants are still getting accustomed to seeing them. Kids play in the middle of the main avenues, just like before when there were no cars in sight.
Pyongyang’s subway system is the deepest in the world as it doubles as a bomb shelter. Someone saw me taking this picture and told me to delete it since it included the tunnel.
Perhaps the most ridiculous prohibition I faced: this official painter was working on a new mural in Chilbo. I took the picture, and everybody started yelling at me. Since the painting was unfinished, I couldn’t take the picture.
It is forbidden to photograph malnutrition.
When you sleep in Kaesong, near the DMZ, you are locked in a hotel complex composed of old houses. It allows the guides to say, “Why do you want to go outside? It’s the same as in the hotel.”
No, it’s not.
It is forbidden to take pictures of soldiers relaxing.
On a little lake on the way to Wonsan, this fisherman uses a tire as a boat.
The pioneer’s camp of Wonsan is often visited by tourists to show the youth from all over the country having fun. But some children come from the countryside and are afraid to use the escalators, which they’ve never seen before.
When visiting the Delphinium in Pyongyang, you can photograph the animals but not the soldiers, who make up 99% of the crowd.
Queueing is a national sport for North Koreans.
In a Christian church, this official was dozing off on a bench. You must never show the officials in a bad light.
A visit to a rural home. Those houses and the families who live there are carefully selected by the government. But sometimes, a detail like a bathroom used as a cistern shows that times are hard.
This soldier was sleeping in a field.
The North Korean officials hate when you take this kind of picture. Even when I explained that poverty exists all around the world, in my own country as well, they forbade me from taking pictures of the poor.