Cannonball, North Dakota - December 5, 2016: A protester holds an American flag during a demonstration near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota during the NoDAPL protests efforts. Photo: Christopher Lee.
**NO RESALES, NOT IN ARCHIVE** STORY TO BE HELD FOR LATER DATE Kyoto, Japan - December 6, 2017: Elderly women perform simple exercises in a privately owned Korean hospice home designed to accommodate the Korean community of Kyoto, including serving familiar food and decor. The majority of the elderly members of the hospice are Korean, many of whom were the first generation of refugees or conscripted laborers from Korea during the WWII and the Korean War. With the decline of the Japanese population, the elderly communities are rapidly growing calling for overfilled hospices. Because much of the Korean community are either non citizens of Japan or stateless, they rely on these privately owned Korean hospices to take care of them. Photo: Christopher Lee.
**NO RESALES, NOT IN ARCHIVE** STORY TO BE HELD FOR LATER DATE Tokyo, Japan - November 25, 2017: An anti hate speech protester is carried away by ultra rightwing Japanese nationalists during an anti Korean demonstration outside of Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo. Combined with a sharp rise in ultra rightwing nationalist sentiment in Japan and the turbulent relations between North Korea and the world, anti Korean demonstrations and sentiment have become more frequent in not only the internet political sphere but in public forums as well. Photo: Christopher Lee.
**NO RESALES, NOT IN ARCHIVE** STORY TO BE HELD FOR LATER DATE Tokyo, Japan - November 16, 2017: Members of FC Korea are seen in the changing room after a bi weekly practice session at a North Korean high school in Tokyo. Founded to foster camaraderie amongst the Korean Japanese community and to facilitate integration into Japanese society, FC Korea still exists to further Korean players on a semi professional level. While their political and financial ties originate with the North Korean regime, they've recently distanced themselves and adopted a much softer a political stance to attract more players. Today, many of the players are Korean, while some even are North Korean citizens or stateless. Photo: Christopher Lee.
**NO RESALES, NOT IN ARCHIVE** STORY TO BE HELD FOR LATER DATE Osaka, Japan - December 11, 2017: A 6th grade class is seen in session at a the first North Korean elementary school, otherwise known as "Ch?sen G?kko", in Osaka. A propaganda photo of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il is seen at the head of the classroom, above the teacher's head. Known to have a direct bloodline to the North Korean regime, these networks of private schools teach North Korean propaganda, communist ideology and revisionist history. Students of the school system often take field trips to North Korea. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Badush, Iraq - May 5, 2017: Makini Chisolm-Straker, an emergency medicine physician from New York City, holds a weeping Faiz Hussain, a medical doctor from Los Angeles, while a father watches his 15 year old son die from a fatal head trauma caused by a mortar blast from ISIS forces at a trauma stabilization point or TSP near the line of contact in a suburb of western Mosul. Credit: Christopher Lee.
**NO RESALES, NOT IN ARCHIVE** STORY TO BE HELD FOR LATER DATE Kyoto, Japan - December 5, 2017: A view of K?jo, a historically Korean neighborhood in Kyoto. Known for being a dangerous neighborhood in the city, the ghettoization of Koreans by the Japanese government fostered an environment for higher crime rates and more poverty in neighborhoods like this. It is believed that many of the members of the Yakuza, Japan's infamous mafia, are ethnically Korean. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Mosul, Iraq - April 25, 2017: A portrait of an Iraqi solider, part of the Emergency Response Division or ERD, at a trauma stabilization point or TSP near the frontline in western Mosul. Credit: Christopher Lee for The New York Times.
Badush, Iraq - May 5, 2017: Katherine Bequary, one of the co founders of NYC Medics, tends to an Iraqi child, that was freshly evacuated from an ISIS held area, at a trauma stabilization point or TSP near the line of contact in a suburb of western Mosul. Credit: Christopher Lee.
Mosul, Iraq - April 27, 2017: Chris Summers, a cardiotherasic physisian assistant from Long Island, New York, stitches a bullet wound of an Iraqi civilian at a trauma stabilization point or TSP in a neighborhood near the frontline in western Mosul. Credit: Christopher Lee for The New York Times.
Washington, DC - January 20, 2017: District police officers are seen clearing a crowd that surrounding a limo that was lit on fire during a violent protest following the inauguration ceremony of Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Mosul, Iraq - May 17, 2017: Local civilians walk down one of the main roads in a west Mosul neighborhood that was recently liberated from ISIS. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Washington, DC - January 20, 2017: Trump supporters stand for the national anthem during the end of the inauguration ceremony of Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Port Aransas, Texas - August 30, 2017: The destruction of Spanky's Liquor store from Hurricane Harvey is seen in Port Aransas. Credit: Christopher Lee.
Beaumont, Texas - August 31, 2017: A pararescue team prepares to hoist down from a HH-60 Pave Hawk during a search and rescue mission by the 41st Rescue Squadron in the destructive wake of Hurricane Harvey. Credit: Christopher Lee.
Mytilini, Lesvos, Greece - September 4, 2015: Syrian refugees from Aleppo bath in the Aegean Sea after being smuggled over via rubber dinghy from Turkey to Greece. Credit: Christopher Lee
Brooklyn, New York - March, 14, 2018: Students from Brooklyn Technical High School listen to a speaker during a national walk out of students protesting the current firearms law in the United States in the wake of the mass shooting of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead. Photo: Christopher Lee.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania July 26, 2016 - A Black Lives Matter supporter protested during the second day of the Democratic National Convention, earlier today. Democrats decsended upon Philadelphia during the last week of July for the Democratic National Convention. Just days before the start of the DNC, a government whistleblowing group Wikileaks released proof that the Democrats conspired against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during the lead up to the conventions. In light of the news, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down Sunday, a day before the DNC would kick off. Delegates and supporters now enter the convention arena and the general elections both polarized and divided. Credit: Christopher Lee
Berlin, Germany - September 23, 2015 A group of refugees helped a man, who according to them was struck in the head by German security while waiting in line to be processed at Landesamt für Gesundheit und Soziales or LAGeSo, the State Office for Health and Social Affairs for Berlin, which sees an average of 600 refugees and migrants a day. Here, legal documents to be in the country along with which shelter facilities they will be staying at are assigned. Once the refugees and migrants have received legal documents to remain in country, they have the option of staying in a shelter or opting for their own housing. Expecting to have 1 million migrants and refugees by the end of the year, Germany is struggling to keep up with the overwhelming numbers which lead to longer processing times and strong handed handling by security forces. Credit: Christopher Lee
Cleveland, Ohio July 19, 2016 - A Trump supporter watched a large screen projecting a live stream of the Republican National Convention. Cleveland has enlisted the help of police force from different states during the Republican National Convention. Cleveland, Ohio hosted the 2016 Republican National Convention where presumptive Republican party nominee Donald Trump will take center stage in both the convention floor and in the streets amongst supporters and protesters. Due to the amount of opposition for Mr. Trump and recent terrorist scares, Cleveland has beefed up it's security by militarizing it's police force, bringing in thousands of extra officers from across the country and setting up strict security measures, thanks to a 50 million dollar federal grant. Credit: Christopher Lee
Location
New York, USA

Christopher Lee

Mentor Program

Christopher Lee, 29, is a Korean American photographer born in Austin, Texas, and raised by his immigrant grandmother. He moved to New York in 2009, certain that he wanted to become a photographer. He ended up taking a job as a bike messenger which, along with paying the bills, enabled him to see and capture the city. Chris first published a story in The New York Times about illegal bike racing. Since then, he has had the opportunity to pursue stories on the refugee crisis in Europe, the war against ISIS in Iraq, and the protest movement in the United States. Chris is particularly drawn in his work to representing underrepresented and vulnerable communities. He is currently working on a long-term project about the Korean Diaspora in Japan. He is based in New York City. Christopher Lee’s editorial clients include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, Glamour Magazine, MSNBC. He has worked for various NGOs and aid groups such as the World Vision, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Robinhood and Ground Truth. Among his corporate clients are Oakley, Cannondale, Specialized, and Rapha.

Christopher is mentored by Ashley Gilbertson.

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