Most images of North Korea appearing in the media express just a few aspects of that country — namely, repression, militarism, poverty, backwardness, gloom.

Often, the form of photographs of that communist dictatorship conveys those ideas, too — whether by being blurry, taken from a low angle or through a long lens; the implicit message being that the image itself is contraband, a stolen glimpse into a closed world.

But it doesn't have to be that way.