It feels like forever since this fun family photo shoot with the McKeegan family. So much has happened in between and I’m happy to finally be sharing them.
Matt’s work had the family based in Pyeongtaek city, just south of Seoul. That meant that their weekends were mostly spent around the Suwon area. One of their favourite places to visit was the “temporary palace” (Suwon Hwaseong Haenggung) so we decided to make that our first stop and see how the girls were going before moving on (Suwon is a tad more spread out than Seoul and there’s a lot of walking between sublocations).
It had been years since I visited Suwon and I was excited to head down and see the changes in the city. So, I headed down for a scouting session a couple of weeks before and found that the whole area had been developed into a cafe and culture street. It was a far cry from my recollections of Suwon and we would have plenty of great locations if the girls were up for a multiple-hour shoot.
We could not have timed our shoot better. October is definitely the month of the year with the highest chance of great weather. Even if those gorgeous autumn leaves aren’t around, temperatures are warm and summer’s rain and humidity are gone. We also have the benefit of an earlier sunset giving us nicer light during the opening hours of many historical sites. The soft warmth of late afternoon light gave us some beautiful sections of the location to shoot in.
We started our session with the girls leading us around into a quiet corner of the palace and having a quick running race to warm up. Once we had our initial burst of energy out, it was time to pile everyone together for some silliness. It’s amazing the smiles and laughter that come from simply having to be so close together! Once we’d nailed out a few of the family together, it was time to give the girls a break and do some individuals with each of them and their parents. Once that was done, we went in search of a beautiful door to for our next few images and then for a walk in the forest park behind the palace.
By the time we were done here, the girls had used just about every screed of energy they could muster and we decided to wrap up the session by flying kites in the square outside the palace. This is one of the great things about doing a session outside of Seoul. Things are a little more free out there and a mix of bike riding, kite flying, and dog walking outside a palace is not an uncommon sight. With that, we walked a couple of very tired young ladies back to the car and bid farewell.
If you’re interested in a family session with us in Seoul or anywhere else in Korea, do reach out and enquire. I’d love to hear from you!
