In the recently published Best Photography Award UK 2025 Season 1, photographer Namwoong Kim's work Shared Years, Shared Scars has been awarded the Silver Award. A deeply personal and introspective piece, the photograph captures two worn forks gently crossed, bearing the subtle scratches of time.
What began as an ordinary morning moment turned into an extraordinary exploration of memory and emotion. “That day, the scratches felt vivid,” Kim recalls. “They seemed to be quietly telling the story of the years gone by.”
Full Interview
1. Could you share the background and setting of this award-winning photo?
This photograph began on a particularly weary morning.
As usual, I was having fruit with a fork set I had purchased 15 years ago to mark a house move. While eating slowly, I happened to glance at the fork and noticed far more scratches than I had ever realized. Those tiny marks, often invisible, felt unexpectedly vivid that day—as if they were quietly telling the story of the years gone by.
I found myself observing the fork closely, tracing each scratch as though they were fragments of shared memories. Without any elaborate setup or staging, I simply wanted to capture that quiet emotion—the sense that even the smallest, most ordinary objects can hold the weight of time. That’s what led me to take the photo.
2. What emotion or message were you hoping to convey through this photograph?
What I hoped to convey through this photograph was a quiet sense of empathy and awareness of what lies beneath the surface of life.
The two crossed forks symbolize the complexities and entanglements of human relationships, while the multitude of scratches speak to the passage of time and the inevitable pain that accompanies shared experience. Though things may appear intact from afar, a closer look reveals the hidden wounds we all carry. I wanted viewers to feel both the warmth of memories and the ache of scars—coexisting side by side.
In the end, the message is simple: life is a journey made of both beauty and hurt, layered gently over time.
3. Is there a particular detail in this photo that you especially love?
What I find most meaningful in this photograph is the way the forks are gently layered together. In Korean culture, placing hands together is often a gesture of humility and respect. Also, when I look at the two forks, I see them as a pair of hands—each bearing scratches like the wrinkles and scars we accumulate over time. Just as hands tell the story of a life lived, these worn utensils seem to carry their own quiet history.
It's that subtle symbolism and quiet dignity in an ordinary object that resonates with me the most in this image.
4. Did you have any specific inspiration or artistic concept in mind during the creation?
The artistic concept I had in mind while creating this image was the trace of time.
I wanted to capture the quiet presence of years embedded within something familiar and ordinary. The worn surface of the old forks, the symbolic layering of their forms,
and the subtle scars revealed by light all felt like fragments sculpted by time itself.
Rather than striving for a grand visual statement, I wanted to express a moment of stillness—one that speaks softly from within daily life.
It’s a bit of a shame that the image can’t be seen in a larger format—many of the textures and emotions I tried to convey become much clearer when viewed up close.
5. What do you hope viewers will feel or reflect upon when they see this photo?
I hope this photograph encourages viewers to reflect on the traces of time embedded in everyday objects. Often overlooked due to their familiarity, these ordinary things quietly carry our memories, relationships, and emotional imprints.
Like the intertwined forks, human connections also bear invisible weight and marks—holding both beauty and pain within them. More than anything, I hope this image invites a moment of pause, prompting someone to look again at something small in their own life—and perhaps see it differently.
