Welcome to the second part in my series of Year in Review posts for this year. We left off at the end of March in my last post with a beautiful family session with the Bruno family and some images I brought back from my time in India. If you haven’t seen that post, please do head over and take a look before we dive into the second quarter of the year.
April, May, and June of 2019 were filled with plenty of family photography sessions, a few couple sessions, a couple of surprise proposals, some editorial, and a little travel.
We’ll kick things off with a portrait I shot for Social Innovation in the Community Magazine. For this edition of the magazine, we visited two companies. This first shot is of an app developer who is working on new ways to teach children to read and write. There’s a lot of good work being done in this space and it was great to hear a passionate developer talk about it. I’ll be sharing a post about this entire shoot in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that.
Before we headed to Jeju Island to photograph the second section of the magazine, I had a couple of family sessions and a surprise proposal to photograph. I had a wonderful session with the Harrison family and their baby boy. We met on a warm sunny afternoon and got some of the most beautiful light I’ve seen from a Seoul spring in a long time. Below those, you can find another couple of little cuties I had the chance to work with a couple of days later.
That afternoon, I headed over to a restaurant on Namsan to photograph James’ proposal to Doreen. He’d booked a private room in a restaurant and asked me to be there to capture the moment. We did that, snagged a couple of shots on the restaurant rooftop, and then met up on Nami Island the following day for a few portraits in the afternoon sun. Since spring hadn’t quite arrived, the trees on the island were still bare. However, we made use of their patterns to create some beautiful portraits nonetheless.
Then it was off to Jeju on a rainy day to meet a man working in several fields to bring new life to the old streets of Jeju Island and explore one of the districts he is working in. The assignment was simple in nature, but a lot of fun to explore. We wondered the rainy streets, walked the coast, and visited a few different restaurants in order to fill the pages of this story. It was hard not to like the green tea shaved ice we tried at one of these spots. Do give it a go while you’re in Jeju!
After flying back up to slightly nicer weather in Seoul, it was time for a couple more family sessions. The cherry blossoms gave us a couple of days and I was able to squeeze in one session with them before they dropped. I also had the chance to photograph the Russel family on a beautiful spring morning in Changdeokgung.
In the middle of all of this, I had a moment to stop by a district that I had photographed for my project “A Day in Seoul” before gentrification began. In place of print houses and a multitude of other small businesses has risen a pair of towers that light up the skyline. I wanted to create an image that showed both sides of the area.
Over the next month, I was able to spend several days with my close friends, the Anderson family. This will become a full blog of its own, but here is the first meeting between them and their daughter Selah. It was a tender day of building a relationship and learning about each other that culminated in some wild laughter between siblings.
The very next morning, I headed over to spend a whole day with Ying, Jia Rong, and their kids and parents. Our “Day in the Life” session started with coffee and a walk through Changdeokgung. We grabbed lunch in Samcheongdong before heading back for a nap as the boys got cranky. Following that, a little play in the courtyard, a walk through the neighbourhood, dinner, and bath time wrapped up our day. It was a real treat to capture all the moments and emotions of that day for this wonderful family.
In a change of pace, I had a chance to work with Secret Food Tours on the launch of their new Seoul tour. After that, I filled a couple of free days with some additional documentary of the city.
Next was an assignment for +852 magazine that involved cycling from Seoul to Incheon. Despite the weather thwarting my efforts several times, I managed to get some shots of the cycling path and its surrounds within the deadline. It was great to follow the paths and see a few new areas of the city I’ve lived in for so long.
My next session was a pre-wedding shoot with Stefanie and Shin during their visit to Seoul. It was great to meet some more people from my home town of Melbourne and we had a beautiful day for their session. You can see more from that day on the full blog.
Soon, it was ANZAC Day. I was honoured again to be invited to photograph the dawn service in Seoul. The Australian and New Zealand ambassadors paid their respect to our fallen over the years hand-in-hand with many others from the nations we have warred with. It was an emotionally charged ceremony that gave all present a sense of where we have come from and hopefully fueled our resolve to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
After this, I embarked on another set of trips around Korea for a client who has a no-share clause in the contract. Thankfully between my shooting days, I had a few moments to myself. We were exploring some beautiful regions of Korea, so I was able to get some of my own photographs before and after work. Join me below for a quick trip around the peninsula.
Back in Seoul, I met up with my good friend Roy Cruz for a little more personal work. It had been years since I visited the Lotus Lantern Festival, so we headed out to brave the crowds and make some images. I decided to make my images in a different way this time around. I opted for panoramic long exposures. It was freeing to shoot something completely different! If you’d like to see more of those, they can be found on my personal site.
Then, it was back to work. First, I joined the Shilvock family as they took custody of their baby boy and then the Perry family as they met their baby boy for the first time. Both were beautiful days with plenty of lovely moments to photograph.
Then I would spend the next few days with the Andersons again as Selah’s custody took place. It’s hard not to share a couple of hundred images from these days, but I’ll reserve the big share for the upcoming blog about this time. For now, here a couple of fun moments from our time together.
The nature of my business is quite transient. Most of the families, couples, and businesses I work with are visiting Seoul and I don’t get to see them more than once. But, this year has been different. Starting with the Andersons, and now the Sharps, I’ve had the chance to work with families multiple times. It’s a treat to watch these kids grow up and be a part of their lives each time they visit Korea. Here are a few from my session with Jae and Sam Sharp this year. We’ve done palace shoots and urban shoots in years past, so this year we chose to visit Anyang Art Park for something completely different.
I flew down to Jeju for the same client I had been working for above following my session with the Sharps. Again I can only share my personal work, but we had some really nice sunrises and sunsets during my few days on the island thanks to the passing storms. And, of course, no matter how many times I visit Jeju Island, the majesty of Hallasan never ceases to amaze me. There was one day when it was clear enough for me to see and I managed to get a shot I’m really happy with.
Then I flew back to Seoul for a few more family sessions. First up was the McFarren family for some portraits of their girls in Hanboks. Then, the Miles family (more Aussies!) joined me for a full family Hanbok session. Next, my old friends the Turpie family (even more Aussies!) came out for another session with me during their visit.
New Zealand’s annual Wine Festivals were up next in Seoul and Busan. For the Seoul festival, I was in charge of the video of the event and in Busan, I had the chance to shoot stills again. Below is a quick selection from those two events.
After heading back to Seoul, I joined the Social Innovation in the Community team again for our next round of interviews for the magazine. One of those was in Seoul and the other took us back down to a ship-repair complex in Busan for a day. A small sample of those is below and more will be coming once I get my tearsheets from the magazine. Please do visit again to see more of those.
Then it was time to join Ian on Namsan as he proposed to Jin during their trip to Seoul. You just might be able to guess what the answer was from the pictures below. Do reach out if you’re planning to propose in Seoul. I’d love to hear from you!
Just a couple more assignments for this quarter and then it’s off to Vietnam. I had the pleasure of working with the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce on their NZ Tech Roadshow in Korea. It was great to see the folks of the antipodes flexing their muscles in the tech space again and I really enjoyed the few days we spent together. After that, I met up with a family from Singapore for a short session at Seoul Forest.
Finally, it was time to head down to Vietnam for my travel client again. While I’m unable to share all the places I visited on that assignment, I did book myself an extra couple of days in Hanoi to work on a personal project while I was there. That will be coming soon to dylangoldby.com, so please sign up for the newsletter over there. In the meantime, here’s one image from the project and some street work from Hanoi in the mornings and evenings surrounding my work.
And that wraps up the first half of 2019. Thanks for sticking with me this far. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Facebook so you can see the next posts!