In 2012, Dutch photographer Eddo Hartmann had just wrapped up a photography project about his family and was looking for something less personal for his next venture. Something had been bothering him about the photography he had seen coming out of North Korea: All the photos from the outcast kingdom seemed similar. Big parades, lines of military marching through the streets—and nothing about the daily life of citizens under the infamously repressive regime. He wanted to change that.



There was a reason for the lack of nuanced portrayals, of course. The North Korean government closely manages outside journalists’ access to every aspect of life in the country, something that Hartmann was about to find out for himself. He knew some documentary filmmakers who had some familiarity with reporting and recording in the country, so he knew the basics of going about getting permission to start his project. After he filed the first round of paperwork, he waited a year and a half, and, in 2014, he set out for the first of what would become four trips to North Korea.



Over next four years, as tensions with North Korea shook the United States and its regional allies, Hartmann detected a shift. “It was quite tense—it was difficult for me to take pictures and videos anymore,” he says. “There’s no single moment that you’re without the guides.”



Ultimately, though, his four visits yielded a glimpse into the country he thought was a valuable addition to the photography about North Korea and the depictions of the people there and released a book, Setting the Stage: North Korea. “There are 25 million people there and they make the best of things,” he says. “They fall in love, have children, and they have to bring the kids to school, and they try to make a normal life within this situation.”



Above, an escalator guard in the Pyongyang Metro pictured in 2016.



Text by Katelyn Fossett.

Eddo Hartmann