New beginning requires an ending because they are connected as one. I see a life as a circle, just like spring comes through winter.

“Umma”, Korean for “Mom,” is a series of photographs witnessing a dramatic family event, my grandmother's passing. When I was in Korea photographing in the winter, I was taking intimate domestic pictures of my family in their daily lives. Then I went to a small village where my father was from and was photographing the rural life there when I got word that my grandmother had had a stroke. She was in a coma for three weeks, and at the end of the third week, she died. She is my mother's mother, and during the funeral and its anticipation and aftermath, I was particularly aware of my mother's grief and emotion. I felt her deep sorrow and fear. And I photographed the sense of loss. The work that I had already been doing about her daily routine prepared us both for my role as a photographer during this momentous time.

Past year, around the world, many people have been in grief for loss of their family members. I am deeply sorry and I wish my work comforts them as all souls are in a new journey of life.