Photographed by Niles J. Fuller

This is one of my favorite photographs of Daniel Johnston. So this is the perfect photo to break my blog on. This face makes me happy and in front of it is where I’ll be.

New York to Rhode Island to Texas…I will be on the road and up in the air. 

I probably will not blog until I return so if you want to come along on my journey, you can do so here:  twitter.com/jungkimphoto

I spent 3 days in Waller, Texas visiting and photographing my friend Daniel Johnston. 

He lives in what I can only describe as a treasure chest. There isn’t an empty wall in sight…they are covered with posters and photos, from Marilyn to The Beatles. Every shelf and corner filled with superhero/comic figurines, comic books, music, and VHS tapes. Spunky the cat roams the hallways. 

Above is a polaroid I took of him working in his art studio.

I’m looking forward to many more years of these quiet moments with Daniel, who seemed happier than I’d ever seen him be.

Thank you to the Johnston family for welcoming me with such warmth into their homes. 

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This project with Daniel wasn’t really a project at all when I first photographed him back in 2008. I was a fan of his art & music and knew I wanted to work with him. I am so grateful to Daniel’s brother Dick for giving me that opportunity and for welcoming me back time and time again. I had no idea until about a year ago that there might be something here. I have thousands of photographs of Daniel at this point and the reason I haven’t stopped photographing him is simply because I love working with him, and we have great trust and admiration for each other. It has been really amazing to see the reflection of our relationship through the photographs over the years and I look forward to photographing him for many more years to come. 

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I’m thrilled that this has become something I can share, especially with Daniel’s incredible and dedicated fans. As a photographer, getting a chance to work on a passion project like this is a dream but something that is hard to keep doing alone. In February, I will be launching a fund for this project on kickstarter.com to help fund a limited edition photo book that I will be publishing independently and a traveling exhibition. I’m hoping to launch the first exhibition with Daniel in Austin during SXSW festival in March 2013. Hopefully that will get the momentum going for a show in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo and beyond, but realistically this all depends on how much support we can get through kickstarter.com. For the exhibitions, I will also be making some beautiful limited edition catalogs. 

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I will keep everyone posted on the project as it progresses. In the meantime, I’m knocking on wood and crossing fingers! HUGE thank you to everyone who has sent me such wonderful messages of support on this project. Can’t tell you how much it all means to me. 

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BIG LOVE,

Jung

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*UPDATE (Feb. 11, 2012): My kickstarter project will launch in March! Just about 3 weeks from now. If I can launch it sooner, I will definitely give everyone a heads-up! 

Wow. I can’t believe we’re already halfway through our campaign! 

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It’s been amazing to watch all of you awesome supporters back our project in the last couple of weeks. THANK YOU. I’m absolutely in awe of your generosity. Our project has already been Kickstarter Staff Picks for Photography, featured on the Kickstarter blog, their weekly newsletter and today we are their Project of the Day. We’re honored to just have our project on Kickstarter so having these extra highlights have made us even more grateful…and excited!

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I’m just getting back from Austin where I caught up with Daniel during his “Space Ducks” comic book launch party and show at The Belmont for SXSW - a packed house and all. I also spent an afternoon with him at his home in Waller to take some more photos and little bits of videos that I will post exclusively for our backers in my next update very soon.

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ALSO- I just added a new reward for $35 and more which is everything listed in the $25 category but EVERY backer who pledges $35 and up, your name will be printed in the first edition photo book and you will be a part of this project forever. 

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If you’ve pledged under $35 and would like to change your pledge/reward, you can easily do so by clicking the blue “Manage Your Pledge” button above the list of rewards on the upper right side of the project page. 

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Thanks again for your amazing support and please keep spreading the word about the project via Twitter, Facebook, etc. We still have little over 15k left to go to make our minimum goal! Crossing fingers…here we go!

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Jung

It’s official…Kickstarter has started counting down to our deadline in HOURS now!

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We still need to raise the remaining 10% of our goal, otherwise no money changes hands. Yep, not even a penny! So my Tumblr friends everywhere, if you’ve been meaning to pledge, now is your chance! Our most popular reward has been to get your name printed in the first edition photo book where you’ll be honored in this project forever and you have 70 hours to do it! 

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Thank you to everyone who have supported this project from day one - sharing the Kickstarter link and pledging even a $1 because as you can see, every dollar counts! We’re so close and I believe we can successfully fund this baby in the next 70 hours and it will be the beginning of something very very special. 

Many many thanks,

Jung

If you speak Spanish, check out the new article on my Daniel Johnston project by Yorokobu magazine based in Madrid, Spain.

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A cientos de artistas, el reconocimiento les llega una vez muertos por muy dilatada que sea su carrera. Por suerte, no siempre es así. Daniel Johnston, autor maldito, atormentado y con terribles problemas psicológicos, está viendo cómo su obra y su figura ocupan lugares más visibles que de costumbre. La fotógrafa Jung Kim se encuentra […]

We have met our 30k goal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to everyone for all of your pledges and support during our month-long campaign. We couldn’t have done this without you, and we’re so excited as to what’s ahead of us! I am so grateful that I’m able to bring this project to life and it is all thanks to you.

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More pledges are still coming in before our funding campaign closes at 11pm (EST) tonight. The more we raise, the more benefit our whole project will have so please keep spreading the word in our final few hours!

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Infinite thanks and love,

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Jung