CRITICAL PHOTOJOURNALISM

Hannah Yoon (she/her) is a Korean Canadian freelance photographer living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focusing on portraiture, documentary and photojournalistic work. While studying sociology and psychology in college, she became interested in social and racial justice issues, which she also pursues through her photography. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, National Geographic and other national and international publications. Yoon uses photography to explore identity, interrogate current systems that shape our communities and question why we are the way we are. She is a proud member of Women Photograph, Diversify Photo and founding board member of the Authority Collective because she wants to see equity and growth in the photo industry.

The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.

As a student, I learned to be very curious—you have to be curious to succeed in this industry. Early on, I started going to random events in the small community I was living in. I went to a meeting that was similar to a Girl Scouts event —which was actually pretty boring—just a group of ten-year-olds working on crafts. One of the girls showed a lot of interest in my camera and when her grandma picked her up, she mentioned that she wished she could get her granddaughter a camera, but she had seven other siblings, and said, ‘It's so hard.’ I thought, ‘Hey, that's an interesting story!” It made me realize that you could find stories anywhere. The family opened up and allowed me to photograph them for at least two years. So, that was a huge lesson for me to be curious and open-minded, especially as you're starting out.

Early in my career, I learned to pay attention to national news stories. I remember the story that got me going on pitching stories. There were a few student deaths by suicide at the University of Waterloo, and another university close by, and I thought, ‘What's happening? This was not a thing when I was in college. So I started talking to friends that were still enrolled in college about mental health and they were so open! I decided to do a body of work on portraits of university students with their faces hidden. I pitched it to my local paper, and they took the story. I think it resonated with people living in the city. And so for me, paying attention to local stories was helpful. 

Eventually I started thinking more internally, such as thinking about what kind of stories I want to see out there that I haven't seen? And then I noticed there just didn't seem like there was enough representation of Asian Americans or Asian Canadians in the media, whether it was in Hollywood or just in my hometown. I thought, ‘Ok… Well, then, I'll just do it. If anything, I'll just put pictures of Asian faces on my Instagram.’  I mean, if I can flood somebody's feed to see someone like me more and hear what I’m thinking, then I feel like I've done my job. I started reaching out to my Korean friends. I wanted to talk to other people who were part of the Korean diaspora, and hear what it was like to have this hyphenated identity. It was so cathartic for me just to talk to so many other people and be enlightened by their thoughts and to exchange stories. And at the same time, I wanted to work on my portraiture and thought that this project will help me get better. I’ll just keep meeting people and keep making portraits. So then the work is twofold, I want to get stories out there, but I also want to work on my craft. Anytime we are working on a story, hopefully we're also improving.

Now, I go between doing stories within my own community, to then working on stories that build on assignment work I find interesting. For example, in 2021, for a whole year, I worked on people who were re-entering back into society after being in prison, especially during a pandemic. I have never experienced incarceration and I don't really have that much experience with it or within my family, but I had always been interested in topics related to incarceration. So, at the end of November 2020, I was assigned to this story with the New York Times, where New Jersey was releasing over 2500 inmates because of COVID. I remember thinking, ‘Wait. But what happens to these people after?’ 

And so I emailed my editor at the New York Times and asked ‘Hey? I don't know if you guys are doing this, but I want to pitch this project idea,’ and my editor was like, ‘Yeah, I don't know why we didn't think about it.’ Always remember to follow up on assignments. That's another way to find projects, I think, is not just taking an assignment and being ‘All right. I did that one day, and I’m done.’ There are people that I’m meeting and contacts that I am making that I could follow up with, and I think that really helped with them letting me do that project last year.