In May I photographed South Korean CEO Kim Jung-woong of GP Club for Forbes Asia. Mr. Kim has made a fortune by selling facial masks in China and became one of South Korea’s newest billionaires. I had to combine my reportage and portrait skills for this particular photoshoot.
Early morning, Forbes writer Grace Chung and I visited a duty free store in downtown Seoul. Chinese resellers called ‘daigous’ lined up to purchase the products of JM Solutions, a cosmetics brand by GP Club, in bulk. Each cart draped in white contains $18,000 USD worth of facial masks. My first personal encounter with the “beauty bonanza” and the hype of K-beauty was pretty surreal.
After the interview, the portrait session took place in JM Solutions’ flagship store in Myeongdong. Mr. Kim is known to be press and camera shy. I brought lighting equipments and a backdrop to make this rare opportunity count.
The story was chosen as the cover for the Forbes Asia July/August issue, a commission which happens to be my first-ever cover story in a major publication.
View more of my portrait work here.