Thanks for joining me in the third portion of my Year in Review series for 2024. In this post, we’ll look at quite a few of my sessions from July to September as the weather finally cooled down and we began heading into autumn.
July – Proposal, Family, and Commercial Photographer
July is one of the hottest, wettest, and most humid months in Seoul, but any rain we have tends to wash the trees clean of the hot summer dust and leave the world a deep shade of green. This was the case for Michael’s proposal to Yvanah. He’d selected the beautiful view looking back towards Bugaksan at Gyeongbokgung and, despite the heat, we got a perfect morning for it. That very afternoon, I had another session with the Hopkins family and the temperature had ramped up significantly by mid-afternoon. Working with older children meant we could move quickly and get things done before everyone baked in the summer heat. On days like this, I’m always thankful for the clouds. The biting sun of summer can make things really uncomfortable.
Later in the week, I photographed another proposal with yet another Michael and a family session with the Lancasters. Michael had chosen the view of Seoul Tower from Baekbeom Park as his location and, thankfully, we got another mostly overcast day. The clouds on days like this also ensure that colours render evenly and deeply, so they help the photos as well as the people involved! The Lancasters were just as lucky. The morning of their session called for clouds before the afternoon sun and we managed to stay relatively cool. Especially in summer, when the sun gets high early in the day, clouds also help us to work anywhere we like in the palaces without being restricted by light.
The following week, I spent a couple of days with Volvo Construction Equipment. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share those photos soon! Then, we had our regular shoot with Foot Locker before a proposal that we could write a book about! Lo had flown in during a certain global server incident and almost didn’t make it! With a little shuffling, we managed to pull this off for him and it ended up being one of the most beautiful days of the year. After a busy couple of months, my wife and I took the few days in the leadup to this proposal to enjoy Jeju Island, as well. It was nice to breathe fresh air and relax for a time. Aqua Planet Jeju is also quite special and definitely worth a visit!
I flew back up to Seoul for what should have been another proposal session, but Seoul’s summer rains had other plans and our location had flooded! Thankfully, Ismael would be in Korea for quite a bit longer and we were able to reschedule and find a new location. Instead, my next session was with Ding Ting and her family at Gyeongbokgung. We had yet another cooler morning thanks to some cloud cover and even some light rain during the shoot. Over the next couple of days, I found myself out at Doomoolmeori, the Han River confluence, for Ji Keet’s proposal (more on that in an upcoming blog) and then back at Gyeongbokgung with my old friends, the Young family for their last session as a family of three.
To round out the month of July, we finally made Ismael’s beautiful proposal happen for him! You can read the whole story on my proposal photography blog, but here are a couple of images from that lovely night.
Over the course of June, I still managed to get out and cycle the river paths when they were clean and the rain let up. Being out there is a great way to see first-hand the damage that our summer floods cause. They are not to be trifled with!
August – Family and Proposal Photographer
August is the quieter of the summer months and usually offers a little time off from the heavy schedule of the rest of the year. This is when Korean companies have their holidays and the whole country slows down a bit to avoid the summer heat. Still, this year, I had a few fun photo shoots despite that heat. Kicking the month off was the Namad family, who were visiting from Hong Kong, so perhaps the heat wasn’t so bad for them! We had a great session at Changgyeonggung in the late afternoon sun.
Next, I flew down to Jeju again to work with Zavier on his proposal. He was really hoping for a field of sunflowers but his travel dates were not likely to line up with their short-lived season here. Typically, mid-June to mid-July is when we’ll see them and they mostly wilt after that. We kept a couple of backup ideas in mind just in case, but the moment I touched down on Jeju, I stopped by a few sunflower fields to no avail. Our next couple of options were the early-flowering cosmos or the last of the hydrangeas. The bees were busy pollinating the cosmos and we decided Zavier might get a “no” if he got them swarmed by bees, so we went with the hydrangeas for this one. When looking for seasonal spots in Korea, it’s always best to be flexible in the end as things change very quickly here.
After that, I flew back up to Seoul for a couple of family sessions to finish off a nice relaxing month. The first of these was with the Song family on a very warm and sunny morning at Gyeongbokgung. The second was with the Young family again as the fourth member of their family joined them. As can often happen with post-custody sessions, our little man fell asleep midway through the session and we wrapped up then and there so they could get back to the air-conditioned hotel room.
September – Event, Proposal, and Family Photographer
After the calm and relaxing month of August, September wound up very quickly with a visit by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Rt Hon Christopher Luxon. I was tasked with covering events for the delegation by both the New Zealand Embassy and the Seoul wing of NZTE. It’s difficult to distill these busy couple of days into just a few photographs, but I’ll have a full blog coming soon to show the events in detail. For now, a few key moments.
The rest of September was filled with several proposals and a few events for Austrade Seoul. To get the ball rolling, I flew down to Jeju for a sunrise proposal for Evan. It was a gorgeous morning and Evan had convinced Lina to head out to the coast to watch the sunrise, something they both love. The pre-dawn glow coming over the horizon made for spectacular light during their proposal and gave us the opportunity to make use of the rising sun for the post-proposal photos.
Then, I flew back up to Seoul for the H2 Korea proceedings for Austrade and the Australian Embassy before flying back down to Jeju for Richard’s proposal. He had chosen the same area as Evan, but at sunset, giving the photos a very different feeling. Directly after this, I flew back up to Seoul for Kevin’s proposal to Samantha at Olympic Park. With both of these sessions, there were a lot of people around, but a bit of careful framing meant that I could get quite a few images with the impression that we were alone.
Following this, I flew back to Seoul for a couple of days and then down to Jeju Island again for Anh Le’s proposal. Finally, it was already starting to feel like autumn. Directly after this, I came back up for Emmanuel’s proposal in the cosmos flowers out in the town of Joan, another sign that autumn is here. My final shoot this month was with Peter and Jenny for their proposal at Gyeongbokgung. This time, we had full sun but the weather was finally starting to cool down a little and it was much nicer to be in the great outdoors.
To wrap up my third quarter this year, I headed down to the city of Mungyeong for another Gran Fondo in the gorgeous mountains of Korea. Here are a couple of frames from that, as well as some other rides through Korea and some moments between my sessions this quarter. Thanks for taking the time to look over this long post. I hope to see you again for the final quarter! If you’d like to see more, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram.
