Opening Remarks: Eyes That Tried to Speak ·7

Scissors for photos 16

I'll take a picture of you when you fall down. ·20
Flesh, Life, and Photography ·24 / This is Not the President ·31 / The Awkwardness of Things Taken for Granted ·36 / When Death and Laughter Fight and Cry ·43 / Who is the Owner of the Same Photograph? ·50 / Those Who Depend Know and Don't Know ·56

Trigger, Bullet, and Film 62

Don't shoot while eating ·66
There is no country for the photographed ·68 / At that time, the photographer's hand was trembling ·73 / The insult of being photographed, the insult of being photographed ·80 / There is no bad ending, there is a good ending ·84 / Watching and protecting ·89

Time of the photo 96

Time of Photography, Time of Photography ·100
When the sleeping film awakens one day ·103 / Time takes memories with it ·109 / Accumulated beginnings ·113 / What was not visible then, but is visible now ·116 / The giant ball launched by the new past ·123 / If B was everything to A, if it were so ·127 / I wish it was right, I wish it was wrong ·131 / In the evening, he struck my ear with death ·136 / A person crying in a car ·139 / Bird, bird ·144 / The death of those who do not know ·147 / The arrow that does not return ·150 / When my mother was buried, snow fell, like coincidence or inevitability ·154

Memory Struggle 158

Is memory good, and forgetting evil? ·162
Answer me, if you want to ask why I cry ·167 / The verdict of a society doomed in advance ·173 / A certain movie I know ·179 / Drought ·182 / I hated Baek Gi-wan ·186 / Can you see this fire? ·190 / His fight always failed ·195 / Who is responsible for the April 3rd incident after April 3rd? ·200 / When someone's death becomes a harbinger of more deaths ·204 / The man said no again ·213 / Understanding the theme ·225

Closing Remarks: The Meaning of What I Saw Then ·229

Photo List ·253
Source of the article ·254

The photographer's time and space, inside and outside of the photograph
Traces of reflection while observing, lingering, and capturing the 'scene'

"Speaking Eyes" is not a collection of texts and photographs, but rather an art essay in which texts that weave condensed thoughts are read alongside carefully arranged photographs.
However, instead of photo essay or photo prose, the term ‘photo theory’ was added here.
Doesn't that mean that we will thoroughly reflect on 'photography'?
This book is filled with the author's struggles and struggles as a photographer, observing, staying, and capturing the 'scene'.
The scenes he captures and focuses on do not exist in an art world separate from reality, but rather encounter and intersect with our daily lives in Seoul, Jeju, Gwangju, Pyeongtaek, and elsewhere.

『Speaking Eyes』 consists of four chapters: “The Scissors of Photography,” “The Trigger, Bullets and Film,” “The Time of Photography,” and “The Struggle for Memory.”
In "The Scissors of Photography," it is pointed out that the idea of ​​a photograph being "objective, neutral, fair, and impartial" is nothing more than a play on words, and that the creation of a photograph necessarily involves expansion, contraction, and refraction of meaning.
A photograph that cuts through the unfolding and continuous space-time necessarily contains concealment.
To say that a photograph shows something is to say that it hides something.
You can glimpse the intense struggles of cutting out time and space, while simultaneously exploring the front and back of the cut time and the inside and outside of the cut space, and threading meaning through the process.
In "Trigger, Bullet, and Film," we ponder how to judge the intentions behind photographs in an era where the number of photographs taken per day has increased beyond the number of spoonfuls eaten.
A photograph is a text that depends on context.
The important thing is how to use the photos produced and in what context to place them.
Even a photograph placed in a well-intentioned context can serve a purpose for evil.
Noh Sun-taek says that this is the trap of photography, but also its potential.
In "Time of Photography," I reminisce about my frequent visits to the graves of the dead as much as the places of the living, and contemplate people and photographs that crumble before time.
It sharply delves into the relationships and meanings of past, present, and future between life and death, existence and absence.
He says, “There is no present in life that moves forward without stepping on the stepping stones of the past.”
In "The Struggle for Memory," we witness those who have preserved their memories through a arduous struggle against oblivion.
The sight of people who have become one with their wounds in the pain where even memories and records sometimes become materials for oblivion comes with a piercing pain.

A photograph is a mysterious bead, a window through which we look out upon the world and a mirror reflecting us.
Making you stop in front of the mirror, that is what the author wants to convey through the photo.
That is why Noh Sun-taek's question, "Do you believe in photography?" and his insight that "photography deals with things as they are, but does not show them as they are" shake and shake the hearts of readers.

From the book's cover to its copyright, from its contents to its physical properties,
A deep narrative that continues from the moment you open the book until you close it.

『Speaking Eyes』 was designed to be a size that is easy to hold in one hand and read while immersing oneself in the text, but the images are arranged so that each takes up a separate page so that the photographs can be fully appreciated.
The photo frame was designed to capture the meaning contained in Noh Sun-taek's photographs, which speak to both the world seen within the photograph and the world outside it.
The photo in the center focuses on what the photo is saying, while the photo touching the outer boundary suggests a world connected to the outside of the photo.
The title at the bottom of the text and cover design symbolize a perspective and thoughts that go beyond the existing hierarchy.
Additionally, to allow readers to experience the depth of Noh Sun-taek's photographs more specifically, the book was completed with 5-color printing instead of the usual 4-color printing.
The density and depth of field in black and white photography are particularly noteworthy.
The cover was printed using silkscreen printing, realizing the metaphorical meaning of the book through design and physical properties.
The design of the belt also catches the eye as it sensually captures the message the book is trying to convey.

There are books that I read and then reflect on carefully.
This is not a book you should just look back at because it's beautiful, but a book you should hold your breath and carefully contemplate, as if searching for life sunk deep in the ocean.
"Speaking Eyes" is a book that takes you back in time to reflect on the meaning and reasoning behind Noh Sun-taek's photographs and writings, and then deeply resonates with you as you discover that the world you encounter in the book connects with your own life.
When you reread the meaning embedded in a photograph you'd casually passed over, when you discover a hidden story in a story you'd read like water, when you realize what meaning a cover you'd glanced at unintentionally holds, you can feel a wave of energy rushing through your body.

The book begins with “To the Grave” and ends with the story of the young worker Kim Yong-gyun.
What can and cannot be said with a photograph?
"The Speaking Eye" will be a book that will be kept close by, read often, and cherished for a long time by those who seek to capture and gain insight into life with a delicate perspective, those who grapple with the world's absurdities and contradictions, those who struggle on the border between despair and hope, and those who explore the medium of photography and ponder its true nature.