An interesting selection of photos revealing the closed country of North Korea. Photographer Zaidi was no doubt accompanied by a minder during his two-week visit but during that time and minder permitting, he managed to take enough that capture the feel of the country and its ramshackle economy. With just over a hundred photos of the countryside, cities and especially the capitol Pyongyang. It's worth saying that the quality of life in the capitol is far better than in other cities and vastly superior to those who live in the countryside.
I thought one of the strengths of the book are the many pictures of people going about their daily lives, going to work (walking, cycling, or on a bus) fishing, teaching children in a classroom, having a picnic, looking at official statues and more. It's well known that traffic cops, in the cities, are girls just past their teens and the caption for one photo says the job is a really prestigious one, rather ironic because traffic is nearly non-existent and I doubt they would be able to handle a traffic jam.
Worthwhile though the contents are I think the book has a couple of flaws. The paper (a good matt art for the 200 screen printing) is too thick for the book's size so it can't really be opened nearly flat, all the pages curve from the center spine. The other problem is that the captions are all on the last two pages. The reader has to keep flipping backwards and forwards to find out about a particular photo. Rather annoying because a slight adjustment to the layout would allow all the captions to be with their pictures.
Incidentally, Bing maps has some excellent aerial images of the country, good enough to see the occasional vehicle on a city street,
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