Can you describe three life moments that made you who you are today?

My first moment was in 2009, when a thief broke into my place, and took away everything I had built over ten years in a single day. Every film negative I had shot since high school, my cameras, hard drives, and even my computer. It happened just three days after I returned from a three-month photography project in Niger, Africa. After that, I stopped taking photographs for about two years. The sadness from the loss didn’t last long, but I simply could not see any image within me that I wanted to make for awhile. Photography had felt like my whole life back then, and all at once, that was gone.

My second moment was in 2011, when I took a leave from university and wandered across North America with a friend, living on the streets as homeless drifters. We passed nights in hostels, on street benches, in Greyhound stations, meeting people from all kinds of backgrounds, from those carrying difficult personal stories, to others who had come from privilege. Through those encounters, the world opened itself to us in unexpected ways. I left because I wanted to fully embrace my youth, but also because I wanted to step outside the limits of my own perspective and experience the world on a wider scale.

And my third moment was in 2022, when my father suddenly had to undergo open-heart surgery. During the operation, an accident caused him to suffer a stroke, and my family and I spent the next six months caring for him in the hospital while the left part of his body was paralyzed. It was the first time I had ever stayed that close to him for so long in such a vulnerable state. From meals to the most basic physical needs, we went through everything together. In that time, the way I saw my father, the way I thought about family, and even the way I understood the world began to change. Many of the stubborn beliefs and rigid ways of thinking I had carried within me for so long slowly softened and melted away.

Who or what is inspiring you to make work these days?

The greatest source of inspiration for me right now is text. As I find myself increasingly exposed to AI-generated writing, I have begun to feel that even a few simple words written by a person can sometimes strike me as a new kind of force. Even when sentences are made up of the similar words, I am fascinated by how we can still recognize what falls outside the formula of AI; the unique way each human being expresses themselves, the nuance, the habit, and the naturalness that comes through. More and more, I want to make that difference visible and conscious. The visual language of typography, as it is understood in graphic design, is also very interesting to me as something beyond mere visual pleasure. Once you become aware of intention in form and appearance of the design, it’s fascinating! Since the beginning of 2026, I have been experimenting with different medium combined with photography to bring text into my own work.

How would you describe your aesthetic to someone who has never seen your work? What is your eye drawn to?

The aesthetic I pursue is simply what feels right to my eyes. I like organizing complexity, and I believe that everything has its own place to be, in my own subjective sense. Finding that place does not seem to follow any calculation or formula. I often think that what I express intuitively comes from the things I absorbed visually while growing up, things I learned through feeling rather than instructions or theory. And just as my life changes, my sensibility changes with it. Sometimes I am drawn to what feels uncomfortable, and there are other times where what looks pleasing or perfect still feels incomplete. The images I create seem to reflect the state of my sensibility at that particular moment, so I hope that what I have seen and felt can be communicated through my aesthetic.

What went into capturing your winning image?

My father raised his three children to be independent from an early age. He wanted us to experience society and to develop an understanding of the world around us early in life. Starting in my second year of middle school, my older brother and I worked part-time jobs while in school. Beginning with under-the-table shifts at a convenience store, staff at a movie theatre, construction worker, translator, then manager of retailers, all the way through university. This photograph is one of the images I made for a small book project, in which I wanted to express what I had observed and felt over the years in the society: how people from different backgrounds come together in one place called society, and how they learn to cooperate and create harmony with one another. With this specific image, I wanted to explore the idea of teamwork in social life and to present the most realistic form of teamwork I have witnessed in the world around me.

Where do you feel you are at in your creative journey?

If up to this point, my creative journey has been mostly about pursuing what satisfies me and what brings me joy. Lately I feel I have entered a period of asking how that joy can be shared with others, and how I might share it more widely. It is still important for me to find the “balance” and “harmony” I seek within myself, but I have come to feel that the joy grows even larger when those things are created together with more people. That is why I am now in communication to collaborate with artists from other disciplines, while also continuing to think about how my work can be shared with a wider audience. Participating in the Booooooom Photo Awards was one result of that process.

Complete this sentence: For me, photography is…

a playground of freedom. I can build a sandcastle on the monkey bar, or ride a swing on a seesaw, no one can say anything to me.

What’s one piece of good advice someone gave you, and who said it?

“Go jin gam rae” (고진감래) is a Korean four-character idiom. Its literal meaning is, “when the bitterness ends, the sweetness comes,” and it means that joy comes after hardship. For me, this phrase carries the meaning of seeing hope when I am going through difficult times, but it also means that when I overcome hardship and achieve something through challenges, that joy is greater than the happiness that comes from something easily achieved. That is why I live believing that there is more joy in pursuing what is meaningful, even if it is difficult, than in looking for what is easy.

What is the most interesting thing you’ve seen, heard, or experienced recently?

Since last spring, I have been training with a personal trainer at a friend’s recommendation. Before that, I had never exercised, and I used to think that the body and mind were connected but still belonged to separate domains. Through consistent training, however, I have come to realize that they move together as one. When I reach my physical limit, what follows becomes a mental struggle with myself. As my physical endurance has improved, my thoughts and perspective have also begun to shift in a more positive direction. I have noticed a greater ability to handle stress, heavier workloads, and the pressure that comes with both work and making art. Seeing myself take one step further when I thought that was my limit has taught me something new about the relationship between the physical and the mental. Exercise does not make everyone a better person, but for me, it has been a powerful way to build the strength to face obstacles without giving in, and to keep moving forward with both body and mind.

What is one thing you want to accomplish this next year?

My goal is to publish the book I created that includes this award-winning photograph and if the opportunity arises from it, I would also love to hold an exhibition and spend time in front of my work, talking and connecting with people.

What is one thing you hope to accomplish in your lifetime?

One thing I hope to accomplish in my lifetime is to create the conditions that will allow me to devote my time entirely to photography, keep experimenting, take on new challenges, and make larger-scale work with more people.

Chanyoung Chung on Instagram