Korea’s autumn is absolutely stunning. Starting from the north, the country gradually changes from the verdant hues of summer to a vibrant mix of brown, red, and yellow. This time of year is so beautiful, in fact, that tour companies have buses that follow the progression of the change down the peninsula. They stop in at all the national parks for visitors to take in the beauty. The colours don’t last too long in Seoul, but if you time it right, the leaves can make for a beautiful backdrop. That’s just what we got for this session.
When Ashley first reached out, she had mentioned being excited to experience the Korean autumn. We all crossed our fingers that the timing would line up. Thankfully, it did! Once we’d locked down a date, we set the location for Changdeokgung as it offers a good mix of palace beauty and some autumn leaves. Ginkos and Japanese maples make for blazing red and yellow, which is exactly what we were after.
We met up just before the palace’s opening time and started our session with the beautiful autumn leaves. My first job on any family session is to warm the kids up and build a rapport with them. So, we started really simply by having everyone snuggle together. I kept a wider lens on the camera so I could be in close and communicate face-to-face with the children as we made the first few images. Once we had these in the bag, we tossed some leaves in the air for fun and headed into the palace.
Once inside, we got everyone lined up for a quick shot with the beautiful palace walls before the traffic got too heavy. Then worked on some individuals of each of the kids. I always find that halfway through a session, we need to slow things down an focus on each child for a while. This gives everyone a bit of a break while still making good use of our time. This is especially important when there are multiple children involved.
To wrap up our session, we worked on some more active shots to get the kids energised again. For these last few shots, we used my favourite couple of spots in the whole of Changdeokgung. Thankfully, the crowds were still thin and we were able to finish off with some great shots uninterrupted.
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