Welcome to Part 3 of my 2025 Year in Review series. This time, we’ll be making the long slog through the summer heat and enjoying some of the best light that Korea offers all year. I hope you enjoy this ride and join me again for my final instalment next week! July – Family, Commercial, and Proposal Photography Kicking off July, I started with some family sessions, one in Gyeongbokgung and one in Changdeokgung. Both had some real personalities […]
Welcome to another instalment of what has become an annual tradition around here, the Year in Review. In this four part series, I’ll walk you through the various clients I’ve worked with over the course of 2025, give a little insight into Korea’s seasons, and share some interesting anecdotes from along the way. As with every year, this series serves to give you an overview of all the different sorts of work I do and how Korea looks and feels […]
If you’ve ever wondered how nice weather can get, the days after storms, especially in summer, on Jeju Island are absolutely spectacular and are a good example of peak weather. The rain clears the air and visibility reaches its best. For several hours after a summer storm, we’ll also get those beautiful cumulus clouds that look like a child’s drawing. The day I did my recce for Chris’ proposal to Annie was one of those days. The day before had […]
Carrying on from my last post, I wanted to share another sunrise proposal on Jeju Island. A question I often get with surprise proposals is “How can we make it as private as possible?” The simple answers to this are timing and location. As a general rule, Koreans, especially when on holiday, are not early risers. Case in point, coffee shops in Seoul don’t tend to open before 10am! So, if you’re willing to get up early, peace and solitude […]
Jeongbang Falls is a spot that should be on any Jeju itinerary. Sure, it’s on every “Top 10” listicle about Jeju Island and every tour bus on the southern circuit will take you there. But this is one of those spots that’s on the list with good reason. It’s quite impressive and flows year round, as hopefully you’ll see from the photos and video below! Having said that, I typically don’t recommend it for a proposal because of […]
Jeju Island is famous for its natural beauty relatively warm climate. It’s also well known, especially among locals, as one of the windiest parts of the country. In fact, it even goes by another name in some circles, Samdado. The characters for this name translate to the “Island of Three Plenties,” referring to its wind, rocks, and ladies. In this post, I’ll focus on one of those plenties and shar a very windy Jeju Island Proposal, indeed. Ryan and I […]
This proposal was one of those that all just slotted into place simply and easily. Arron reached out with a rough idea of what he was hoping for, which is always a great place to start. He knew that he wanted a bouquet of flowers, a violinist playing nearby, and somewhere relatively private with some nature around to propose. Initially, I shared a few of the parks in Seoul to get things started, and also offered up the pagoda at […]
Every now and again, I get a request to use Korea’s Garden of Morning Calm as a location for a family or couple session. It can be a lovely spot, but there are some logistical and crowd-size considerations to make when thinking to use the arboretum for a photo shoot. So, in this blog, we’ll explore some points surrounding these while looking at Richard’s beautiful proposal to Jolyn. Richard had reached out quite a few months in advance of his […]
Gyeongbokgung, Seoul’s number one tourist stop, sees thousands upon thousands of visitors a day and can get particularly chaotic at the prettiest times of year. Peter and Jenny’s trip was right in the middle of one such time and his chosen location within the palace was one of the hotspots for tourists to stop by and appreciate the beauty of Korea’s royal architecture in amongst nature. As with all my sessions at Gyeongbokgung, we scheduled this one for opening time. […]
Preparations for any session involving flowers in Korea necessarily happen very close to the shoot date. In the case of Brandon’s proposal, we were aiming for the buckwheat flowers on Jeju Island, which typically last a couple of weeks at best. They bloom and stay a beautiful white during that time before quickly turning brown and leaving just the green fields behind. As with flowers like the cherry blossoms, timing really is key with the buckwheat flowers. In preparation for […]