Photo: President Lee Jae-myung meets with the cafeteria workers of the presidential office. Credit: Office of the President.
President Lee Jae-myung 이재명 대통령 has been trying to turn a new leaf in the Office of the President, and that includes the president’s photographer. The photos of the new president have been taking an angle that has not been seen before, intended to deemphasize his authority.
Lee’s photographer is Wi Seong-hwan 위성환, who began working with Lee in 2024. Prior to that, Wi had no experience in political photography; instead, he spent more than a decade taking photos of tango dancers in Europe. Wi’s photos of Lee often show only a part of Lee’s face, or put him in a much smaller scale. Instead, the photos focus on where Lee’s gaze lands - down the haunting alleyway of the Itaewon disaster 이태원 사태, or the smiling faces of the presidential office’s cafeteria workers.
The photos are a welcome contrast to the presidential photos from the Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열 administration, which were yet another medium of his embarrassing presidency. In the photo taken at the 2022 NATO summit, Yoon was snapped while appearing to review blank sheets of paper or empty monitor screens. Yoon’s wife Kim Geon-hee 김건희 was infamous for taking the center stage in presidential photographs, prompting criticisms that she was appropriating the president’s symbolic authority.
