instagram:

Instagramming from North Korea, with @dguttenfelder

See more of David’s photos from the DPRK by following him on Instagram: @dguttenfelder.

It’s not every day that you see first-hand scenes from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and you’ll almost never see an Instagram Photo Map with images posted directly from Pyongyang.

David Guttenfelder (@dguttenfelder), the Associated Press Chief Photographer for Asia, is doing just that: sharing photos on Instagram while on assignment in North Korea. “I feel I can help open a window into a place that would otherwise rarely be seen by outsiders,” he says. “As one of the few international photographers who has ever had regular access to the country, I feel a huge responsibility to share what I see and to show it as accurately as I can.”

David is one of the first people to ever post real-time Instagram pictures from within North Korea. Most visitors to the DPRK don’t have access to internet and—until just a few weeks ago—foreigners were not allowed to bring mobile phones into the country. Now David can share personal iPhone and iPod Touch photos to Instagram as he captures them. “There are so many curious, strangely beautiful, or melancholy details around us here…These might not be typical of the news photos I usually transmit, but they offer fleeting glimpses of this country, and how it feels to be here.”