Discovery of Korea — The Landscapes Documentary Photographer Lim Jaecheon Has Found

Documentary photographer Lim Jaecheon walks, and keeps walking, across every corner of this land. He believes it is his calling to record, through photography, the vanishing landscapes of Korea.

Words & Photos * Lim Jaecheon
* As a photographer, Lim Jaecheon has focused since 2000 on documenting Korea’s disappearing and changing landscapes, capturing each region’s unique culture, people, religion, and natural environment. Since 2014, he has been running the “50+1” project together with his sponsors to record the present of this land, and it continues into its twelfth year.

On February 28, 2014, Lim posted an article titled “The 50+1 Project, Its First Attempt” on Facebook and his blog. The 50+1 project refers to a collaboration between 50 sponsors and a single photographer. In other words, once 50 people each contribute 1 million won in financial support, Lim spends 120 days documenting one year in the life of a region through photography.
Afterward, from the 150 top-selected photographs, each 50 sponsor chooses one of the 150 photos to receive as a gift, while a photo book titled “Discovery of Korea” is published for each project by Noonbit Publishing—this is the core structure of the project.

On the surface, this resembles crowdfunding or social funding—raising money from the general public. But it does not rely on any crowdfunding hub site or the backing of a specific organization; it is powered solely by the support of ordinary citizens, forming a long-term project spanning a total of 14 years, with the eighth and final chapter, covering Gyeongsang-do, slated for completion in October 2028.
So far, the “50+1” project has completed six regions, beginning with Jeju-do and continuing through Gangwon-do, Busan Metropolitan City, Jeolla-do, Seoul Metropolitan City, and Chungcheong-do, resulting in five published volumes of “Discovery of Korea.” Photography in the seventh region, Gyeonggi-do and Incheon Metropolitan City, began in September 2025 and is scheduled to continue through August 2026.