Auteurism misses his days as a professional Korean photographer. From behind the wheel of his bus, he dormant turns his lens on the insidious cruelty that unfolds on the darker side of Korean society.

Auteurism’s life changed when he took up street photography in his mid-twenties. Inspired by television ads, he purchased a camera and started to roam discretely around the eclectic alleyways of the neighborhood. Three years and four back surgeries later, he completed a photography course and got his lucky break as the apprentice to a famous photographer of the period. From the world of fashion shows, product shoots, and big name weddings, his attention soon shifted to the intense captures of Japanese greats such as Daido Moriyama and Ishiuchi Miyako.

Now a bus driver, Auteurism is on standby during the early hours. He is most active between 5 and 6 AM, a raw period of emotion when he stumbles upon the most striking human encounters. Like clockwork, an elderly man crosses the street in front of Auteurism’s bus window each morning. While dragging along a hefty cart and selling cardboard boxes simply to survive is inconceivable for a man his age, he continues to power forward with an admirable, yet heartbreaking sense of regularity each day.

On clear days, Auteurism catches sight of a man dozing off at the bus stop. He is often clad in a flimsy skirt along with a combination of old rags he picks up along the way. Positioned precariously by the roadside, he continues to go unseen by the busy commuters who pass him by. On one particular occasion, Auteurism’s eyes were drawn to the man’s tattered slippers, and even more poignantly, the poster plastered right in front of him that read, “Shoes 70% Off.”

Ugliness is next to beauty; deformity is close to perfection; the monster hides behind the noble man; beauty and ugliness coexist; darkness and light go together.

Victor Hugo

During one of his rare days off, Auteurism went into the city center for a lens testing session. Despite spending ample time browsing around the Leica camera store in an underground shopping mall in Namdaemun, Seoul, he was startled to see a man sleeping in exactly the same contorted posture as when he first entered. He could only imagine how fatigued he must have been that day.

As the seasons pass, Auteurism listens to the sweet carols playing at street level and imbibes the sense of familial joy and good will that fills the air over the Christmas period. In contrast to the heart-warming scenes of commuter couples, families, and donation boxes on display, however, the subterranean vibe of the Euljiro underground tends to tell a different story.

Most recently, Auteurism watched on as an old man ambled into a dingy building with a “VIP Room” sign above the entrance. While questioning the VIP status of this frail and marginalized man, he wondered whether he too would end up as yet another lonely old soul destined to subsist on the fringes of human existence.