Reflections Through a Viewfinder
By Tori Thiem, a third-year ETA
There is a saying within the photography community that goes, “The best camera is the one you have with you.” In other words, what you capture is more important than how you capture it. Although good gear can help, technical perfection or superiority mean little without thoughtful content. Anyone can take meaningful images of their lives with what they have—phone, film, digicam, DSLR and so on—given practice and opportunity. In whatever state, such tangible memories are priceless.
It took me more than ten years to fully understand the weight of that sentiment, and it is now the impetus feeding my passion for photography. I am most often inspired by the idea of momentary existence as it relates to my experiences. Thus, wherever I am, I am persistently drawn to capturing instances of people interacting with their environment in addition to impressions of life as implied by structures and objects. The world through a lens is limited—focused and faithful in freezing a split‑second reflection of the past, however minute. There is something intimately compelling in the way that moment is infinitely viewable.
To take a picture is to observe, contemplate and capture time. It is a meditative, ever‑changing practice that is unique in memorializing two lived experiences: my own and that which I perceive.
With every press of the shutter, I get a little thrill of excitement. It is breathtaking when the photo comes out exactly as I envisioned it; but, when something unexpected appears and creates a composition that is beyond my imagination, it is even more exhilarating. Although it might take a few tries or re‑compositions from a different angle, the pursuit of a photograph is so enduringly captivating. This process of preserving a brief moment within the constraints of a viewfinder has, over the years, taught me how to observe and exist among people in a world that can move a bit too fast at times.
I was not always this intentional about photography. Pictures, for my family, were a means of remembering people during special events. My maternal grandparents were refugees in the late twentieth century who fled from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia with their five children. Ma and Kong, my grandma and grandpa respectively, were pillars who held our extended family together in their large, multigenerational home. Ma especially was a dedicated and strong‑willed matriarch who regularly organized open‑invite meals for all and provided extensive childcare for my sisters and my cousins and me in our early years. Their house was a place of wonder and comfort, where memories of their lives throughout the years were preserved and prominently displayed on the walls in photographs.
Those images of important events and portraits, where everyone stood, nicely‑dressed, smiling at the camera, largely influenced my idea of what made a picture “good.” After I got a camera, I willingly became the de facto family photographer during our frequent gatherings hoping to reach that ideal. These events—hosted at Ma and Kong’s house where most everyone in the family came early to prepare and stayed late to clean up—had chaotic but familiar, well‑practiced routines. I was not yet confident in handling a camera, so in between setting up and playing with my cousins to avoid the boring adult parts, I snuck blurry photos without much thought: Ma and my aunts skewering meat sticks on the kitchen floor and Kong and my uncles rearranging the furniture and decorations.
Sometime after the event properly began and all the guests had arrived and eaten, I would be called to arrange the group photos and direct my relatives to move here or look this way—a responsibility I accepted with teenage faux‑confidence accompanied by an exciting rush of unfamiliar authority. As time went on, though, I found less and less enjoyment in taking pictures of the same people in the same places at similar events. My family and hometown were tired subjects that seemed to rarely change and, as a result, I only occasionally took photos on the days I remembered to carry my camera in those early years.
However, after studying abroad for my junior year of university in Seoul, the way I engaged with photography dramatically evolved in response to the variety of perspectives and experiences I encountered. For the first time in my life, I consistently met and socialized with a diverse range of people hailing from all over the world who expanded my way of thinking. I also had to navigate new social rules, language and cultural barriers that forced me to reflect on my long‑held beliefs.
Photography at this critical juncture of my life helped me comfortably engage with my new reality and explore the world around me in focused detail. Behind the viewfinder, all the unfamiliar sights and customs felt less intimidating and more interesting. I could save moments of curiosity and awe in a picture and return to them at will, which allowed me to recognize and appreciate big and small instances of life in South Korea. Carefully searching for scenes and moments to capture in my daily surroundings became a habit that developed my eye for compositions and improved my ability to hone in and pick up on the fine nuances of Seoul’s unique heartbeat and mores. In the course of this singular year, I gained a firmer grasp of Korea conveyed through image as well as a stronger sense of my visual philosophy.
Returning to the U.S. in 2019 with these insights made home refreshingly novel. I found myself newly committed to photographing my family, especially as all the adults who were such timeless, defining figures in memory were visibly aging in the years after Ma’s passing.
When I began to fully participate in family affairs and events as an adult with a desire to visually preserve those memories, I was made soberingly cognizant and all the more appreciative of the concerted effort and labor necessary to maintain our family’s close ties and heritage thus far. Love and devotion were clearly visible in the small, boring moments I once overlooked as a child, and I am grateful that I was able to capture those times of health and happiness sooner rather than later. Furthermore, in the same way that I could better understand Korean society and culture through my camera’s viewfinder, when documenting our frequent interactions I could better recognize subtle expressions of my family’s Cambodian customs. I even found parallels between the cultures, notably: the emphasis on loyalty to family (and those considered as close as blood), respect to elders for their past sacrifice and specific titles for members depending on familial relation. Although these concepts are common across Asian cultures, it felt more significant after experiencing how ingrained they were to Korean society and how they translated into my culture. It was quietly stunning to uncover these details and other stories behind the traditions and customs I had grown up with and never questioned.
I cherished my time at home, but gradually felt a growing desire to witness more of the world before completely settling into adulthood. To that end, nearly two and a half years after I left Korea as an exchange student, I returned as a Fulbright ETA in Gyeongsangnam‑do hoping to make the most of my time. I was armed with improved language and photography skills that allowed me to integrate into my local community and uncovered facets of living in Korea that were newly available to me as a working professional. While recording my daily life in photographs, I had the newfound confidence to step out from behind my camera and engage directly with others through intimate conversations utilizing both English and somewhat conversational Korean that added incredible depth to my existing understanding of Korean society and culture. With every moment in the past three years rife with opportunities, I soon began to prioritize a more intimate question about photographing my experiences: what, specifically, did I want to safeguard in visual memory? The endless possible answers have become a driving force in my resolve to meaningfully document my life as I grow older.
Photography has been a near‑constant companion from when I was a teenager and now as an adult, it has taught me invaluable life lessons in how to perceive the world and appreciate its varied cadence regardless of where I am—in the U.S., South Korea or beyond. Searching for and recognizing interesting visual compositions has become second nature to me now, and this subtle practice has had a great impact on who I am and how I have matured. My attention to detail, steadfast sense of identity and patience in the face of sudden changes are just a few of the skills I was able to cultivate in my journey to capture moments and people in my life with my camera.
Each photograph, including those from my early years when I had an untrained eye and lacked the conviction that currently motivates me, is an important record of the past and a reflection of the countless lived experiences that I managed to preserve through a viewfinder.
In the same way photography has allowed me to better contemplate life, I fervently hope that my photos can inspire others to take a closer look at their own reality and find deeper significance in recording instances of theirs.