Park Jongwoo
Park Jongwoo is a South Korean photographer and documentary filmmaker best known for documentary work on the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He has also produced extensive documentary work in the Himalayas.
In 2009, Park received official permission from the South Korean Ministry of National Defense to photograph inside the DMZ, reportedly becoming the first civilian granted such access.
His photographs were exhibited in the Allied Museum in 2023. His DMZ photographs were published in DMZ: Demilitarized Zone of Korea.
Career
From 1983 to 1995, Park worked as a photojournalist for The Korea Times. After 1995, he worked as a stringer photographer for publications including The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.From 1995 onward, his independent projects focused on documenting vanishing cultures and minority communities, including a multi-decade body of work in the Himalayan region.
Himalayan work
Park’s Himalayan work began in the late 1980s and developed into a sustained documentary investigation of high-altitude communities and historic trade routes. In 1987, he participated in the production of the television documentary Trans-Himalaya, filmed across Pakistan, India, Nepal, and the Tibetan Plateau.In the early 1990s, Park identified and documented sections of the Tea–Horse Road, leading to a three-year project photographing and filming Tibetan and Kham regions. This work culminated in the television documentary Tibet Salt Valley’s Last Caravan, later released internationally as The Last Salt Caravan.
He has also worked on television productions including Mongolian Route, The Last Capitalism, and The Last Power.
In 2009, Park published the photo book Himalaya: Twenty Year’s Odyssey and presented related exhibitions, including Himalayan Monograph at the Goeun Museum of Photography in Busan.