The Best Days

Incoming Editorial Team·Verified October 10, 2026

Yang Seungwoo's photographs always prompt the same question: "How did he get that close?" For nearly 30 years, he has photographed the homeless, Yakuza, and others no one remembers. His photographs, taken from an almost impossibly close distance, are not the product of reporting but of time spent alongside his subjects. Yang makes a living cooking okonomiyaki on a festival street on the outskirts of Tokyo, while also being the first foreign photographer to win the prestigious Domon Ken Award for documentary photography. But he has an old friend who died without leaving behind a single photograph, and since his death he has carried his camera like a talisman.