Make sure you're in love. If not the pictures will not be good.
Find a Photographer with mad skills
Stephen and I lucked out with our photographer. Yolondo Lupoe is a friend of ours and offered her services for a rockin' low price. She is a professional photographer and we could not be more pleased with her God given talent at capturing the moment.
And in the hours we took to take out pictures I learned some things that really made the photos fun and great.......
Take advantage of where you are.
Ask a more experienced Weigugen (foreigner) where lovely places in the city would be. Maybe gardens, a good hike, art museum, a rooftop garden, fountains, a historic section of town, skate-park or anything that you fancy really.
Grasp onto the Culture
We were'nt too sure about the idea of wearing Korean traditional clothes, it seemed a bit silly, but it ended up being our favorite part of the day. Hanboks are so freeing. I felt beautiful, comfortable and uninhibited. Not to mention they made for fairytale photos.
PLAY
Yolondo was right, the best pictures are often the cheesiest. We went back to our childhood and played sleeping beauty, wrestled, tried acrobatic tricks, danced, ran about, and even did a Korean Drama bit.
Make sure you have a few normal pictures in NATURAL lighting.
You know Mema and Papa will want lovely pictures in western clothing. Make sure you take pictures before 11 in the morning or after 2 in the afternoon. Mid-day the sun is too direct and makes strange shadows under your eyes. Later in the afternoon to early dusk is lovely, especially if you have a location where you can get sunset silhouettes . Everyone expects these pictures, so even though they aren't as fun, they are worth having.
Over-expose/Underexpose
An easy trick to getting a lovely picture is to over-expose just enough to soften all the colors. No photoshop needed, just leave that shutter open. Or the reverse which can make for a different mood and emphasize certain lighted areas.
Just do it....till you're told not to.
In Korea, foreigners really can do whatever they want, at least for a time. Ignorance really is bliss. We jumped a fence to play around this enormous bell which happens to be a signal for air raids....
We had a few looks by passersby, but no one said anything. It also helped that it was secluded up in a small forested area.
JUMP IN
There is a large foutain downtown where tons of people meet up and we thought....maybe we should get some water shots. So although our photographer feared disaster we went ahead, comforting her that we really wanted the neon and possible people in the background.
People love something different
Everyone loved our fountain shots.
It was fun getting wet, if a bit uncomfortable with a crowd forming to watch us jump in and out of the waterfall, but in the end, it produced some great pictures which were often more natural. If you are having fun, it is not difficult to look happy.
Engagement pictures don't always have to have your face in them.
Dance like no one is watching.....seriously....we had quite the crowd. I believe they thought we might be famous and filming a movie.
If you don't have a professional photographer friend, a friend with manual camera skills who has some good facebook albums can still do a legitamate job. Remember, for engagement pictures, really you will probably only use a handful, so if you get over 5 great pictures they did spectacular.
The whole event took most of our day, from 2:30-8:30 and over 800 shots were taken. 400 of which were given to us and we love about 100 of those. So be patient it takes time. Take a lot of photos and get creative.
The other option is to go to a Korean photography studio, but I have yet to experience that, perhaps in another entry....
Most importantly, relax, you're in love so you'll look lovely.
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